


Time

by markymark261



Category: Back to the Future (Movies), DCU - Comicverse, Doctor Who, Gremlins (Movies), Jurassic Park (Movies), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Sin City, Smallville, Superman (Reeveverse), thirtysomething
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Drama, Humor, Other, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 53,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markymark261/pseuds/markymark261
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time-traveling dimension-spanning mega-crossover with Lois and Clark, Doctor Who, Superman movies, etc. Spoilers for Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who and St. Elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Then One By One The Stars Would All Go Out

_Look! Up in the sky!_

That's what the people used to shout, all those years ago. It's what they'd be shouting again today, even though there are no longer any birds or any planes or even any Superman. Now, there's just the Sun, slowly turning from yellow to red. After all this time, the Earth's finally starting to feel like home.

And, as for the people, they're also long gone. Now there are just the insects ... and me.

Looks like I finally got to rule the world. I wonder what Jor-El would make of it all. After all, he's the reason I didn't die on Krypton, the reason I'm here. Him and Jimmy Olsen.

Of course it's a long story and, after all this time, I may be guilty of embellishing it, but here it is, from what I've been able to piece together. It's hard to know where to start, but five billion years ago in a coffee shop in Smallville is as good a time as any.

* * *

"Can I help you," Lana asked the stranger, who looked a bit the worse for wear.

"I'm looking for Lois and Clark," he replied, although experience had taught him how hopeless this task was.

"Just wait around then," she said with a smile, trying to put the stranger at ease. "Clark will be here any moment. Can I get you a coffee in the meantime?"

"Sure," he nodded. "Oh, and I know this is going to sound like a stupid question but where exactly am I?"

"Of course it's not a stupid question," Lana lied, struggling to prevent her smile from slipping. "You're in Smallville."

The stranger gave a sigh of relief. He must be in the past, before Clark moved to Metropolis. As the waitress placed the coffee in front of him he searched his pockets for some money. "This should cover it," he said, passing her some crumpled dollar bills.

"Thanks, I'm Lana Lang and you are …"

The door of The Talon opened, and the stranger briefly turned around, hoping that Clark had walked in, but it was just some blonde-haired girl. The stranger turned his attention back to Lana and was about to tell her his name when he had second thoughts. If this was the past then he couldn't risk upsetting the timeline too much (unlike his ancestor). Maybe he could just use his middle name. "The name's Bart."

"Let me guess," said the blonde-haired girl, who'd appeared beside him. "You're from the future."

The stranger dropped his coffee cup in surprise and looked closer at the girl. Suddenly he recognized her as Chloe Sullivan who he'd met once before during his many travels.

"I've got to go," he said, getting up from the table. "This isn't the right world."

As Lana and Chloe stared at him, he rushed towards the door, only to collide with Clark Kent coming in and tumble to the ground.

"Are you okay?" asked Clark, looking down at the crumpled figure.

"I'm fine," said the stranger, getting to his feet. "It's just that I was looking for a different Clark Kent." And with that, the stranger pushed his way past Clark Kent and left The Talon.

Clark looked at the floor, where the stranger had fallen, and saw that he'd dropped a photograph. As Clark picked it up and looked at what appeared to be a wedding photograph, Lana was looking at the dollar bills that the stranger had given her and was wondering why there was a picture of a bald guy on them.

Meanwhile, out on the streets of Smallville, Jimmy Olsen (for the stranger was he) took out the battered device that had gotten him there in the first place and carefully started to adjust its settings. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and panicking, activated the device.

* * *

Clark placed his hand on the stranger's shoulder and suddenly saw the streets of Smallville transform into a war-torn landscape. With super-speed he grabbed the device from the stranger.

"What's this?" he demanded. "Some kind of hallucination device?"

"No it's a time/space transportation device," explained Jimmy. "Although it's not working properly."

"We're not in Kansas anymore?" asked Clark, realizing the enormity of the stranger's words.

"Probably not," replied Jimmy. "Although if we are then we're not at the same time and/or the same Kansas."

At which point a mechanical voice from behind them drew their attention. As Clark turned, even with his super-speed, he didn't have time to react to the laser beam that was heading for the device he was now carrying. As the beam hit, exploding the device, Jimmy Olsen just watched on helplessly as Clark vanished from view.

Jimmy Olsen turned towards the firer, a merciless killing machine that was now approaching him. Trying to back away he tripped over some rubble. Still, even if he could outrun the machine, now that the device was lost was there any reason to continue living - his friends, his family, his world never to be seen again.

Suddenly he heard a man's voice to his side.

"Come with me if you want to live."

He turned to see a man with a leather jacket and an outstretched hand, and with him, a female companion.

"Trust him," she said. "He's The Doctor."


	2. Save Me

"Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The chilling robotic voice dragged Jimmy Olsen's attention back to the pepperpot-shaped machine of destruction looming towards him.

"It's a Dalek!" he gasped, turning back to the stranger who was offering a helping hand.

"That's right," replied the man, grabbing Jimmy by the arm and helping him to his feet. "Rose," he shouted to his companion. "Behind that van."

The Doctor pointed towards the wreck of a burnt-out van lying on its side at the center of a road just behind them. Rose didn't see how hiding would prevent their inevitable demise but The Doctor had managed to keep her alive thus far so she didn't argue.

The Dalek was aiming its gun at The Doctor just as he and Jimmy Olsen dove out of sight behind the van wreckage.

The Dalek stopped, as its electronic eye surveyed the van that its quarry was hiding behind.

"Exterminate!" it declared one last time as the blast from its gun vaporized the van. And there, behind where the van had been, there was nothing, except for a single manhole cover.

* * *

Seconds earlier Rose Tyler wouldn't have been surprised to be told that she'd now be six feet under, although she wouldn't have been expecting the pungent smells. As she and Jimmy followed The Doctor as he ran down the sewer, the road above and behind them was blasted away, causing sunlight to come streaming down, along with a levitating Dalek.

"Resistance is futile!" explained The Dalek, just as his prey reached an intersection and disappeared once more from sight. By the time the Dalek reached the intersection, they'd disappeared in the maze of sewers beneath the destroyed city.

As the Dalek began the slow laborious process of searching every inch of the sewers, The Doctor, Rose Tyler and Jimmy Olsen were climbing out of the sewer next to a large blue police telephone box.

"It's the Tardis!" exclaimed Jimmy Olsen.

Rose was a bit confused as to how this man knew about the Tardis. Also, she could have sworn she recognized him from somewhere.

The Doctor didn't seem a bit surprised though, but then again he never did. He just nodded. "Yes it is. Do you want to come inside?"

Jimmy Olsen looked at the destruction that surrounded him and decided that that would the sensible option. "Sure."

The Doctor opened the door and beckoned him inside. "I'm The Doctor," he said, introducing himself, "and this is Rose Tyler."

"Hi, I'm Jimmy Olsen."

At that moment realization dawned on Rose. "That's right. You played him on TV. I recognize you now."

Jimmy shook his head. "No, I'm the real Jimmy Olsen."

"But Jimmy Olsen isn't real," explained Rose. "He's just a comic book character."

"Yeah, just like Doctor Who's a TV character," countered Jimmy. "Although he's certainly changed. The Doctor Who I knew was an alien with garish dress sense."

"Like your _friend_ Superman?" Rose asked with a surplus of sarcasm. "And who's Doctor Who?"

"Multiple realities," said The Doctor, interrupting Jimmy and Rose's bickering. "What we know as a comic book character actually exists in another reality, just as in some other reality we're just characters in a TV show."

"You've got to be joking?" said Rose. "Even if there were other realities how would we know what was happening in them? What are they - noisy neighbors?"

"Some realities are so big they cast shadows, Rose."

"Okay, so you're saying all TV shows are just other realities."

"Exactly … except for reality TV shows ... and the ones that are completely made up."

Realizing that her conversation with The Doctor was as fruitless as the one she'd been having with Jimmy, Rose Tyler decided to shut up for a while.

"So, Jimmy," asked The Doctor. "What brings you to this reality?"

"I had this device that enabled me to travel across time and realities, but then that Dalek destroyed it, along with Clark Kent."

At that point Rose forgot that she'd earlier decided to stay quiet. "That's where we came in. That guy looked just like that guy out of Smallville."

Jimmy gave a sigh. "Well that guy was Clark Kent. Well, _a_ Clark Kent, but now thanks to me he's dead."

"He's not dead," laughed The Doctor. "Lost in time, lost in space, admittedly … but not dead."

* * *

Clark Kent suddenly materialized on the streets of Smallville in the exact same place where he'd left. He looked across at The Talon, except the sign above its doors didn't say The Talon anymore but The Green Rock Café.

He wandered up to the doors, hearing the loud music blaring from within, and entered. Once inside he stared in shock at the clientele - the place was full of mutants. Where coffee had been served before, there was now alcohol, and there at the bar, buying a drink from a huge metallic grey bartender, was a face he recognized.

"Lana," he said, rushing over to the leather clad girl at the bar.

"Can be if you want me to," she replied, as she sipped at her drink. "Or, if you prefer the intellectual type …"

At which point her face morphed into Chloe Sullivan's.

Clark couldn't believe his eyes. "What's happened here?"

"We've taken over, Clark," she replied.

"You know me?" asked Clark.

"Every green-blooded girl in Smallville remembers you, Clark," she laughed. "Yeah, you were pretty rad for a plaid guy. To tell the truth I was really sad when you disappeared, what was it, about five years ago. And now you're back and you haven't changed in the least. Not like the rest of us."

"Who did this to you?"

"It was your friend, Lex. Guess it took his mind off searching for you."

"He turned you all into mutants on purpose?" asked an incredulous Clark.

"Professor Lex and his Lex-Men? You've got to be kidding me, Clark. We're just the test subjects he experimented on - the ones who survived anyway."

Clark couldn't believe his friend was capable of this. "Why would he do this?"

"Money of course," she replied, as if the answer was obvious. "Lex never had a day's illness following his exposure to kryptonite."

Clark still failed to comprehend so she continued her explanation. "Kryptonite - a cure for the common cold, a universal panacea - can you begin to comprehend how much that's worth?"

Clark nodded. "So, you mutants have taken over The Talon?"

"No, Clark," she replied patiently. "We've taken over Smallville. The locals don't care anymore - they're all out stoned in a field somewhere. And please don't call us mutants - we prefer the term freaks."

The bartender started to walk over to the other side of the bar and Clark suddenly caught a glimpse of a green piece of kryptonite at the back of the bar. Suddenly his body tensed and he started to feel dizzy and nauseous.

The girl looked at him. "What's the matter, Clark? You don't look at all well." A hand went to his throat. "Let me put you out of your misery like all the rest of the norms." Her hand squeezed tighter. "Whose face do you want to see as you die?"

Clark gasped for breath as the kryptonite sent pain throughout his body.

"Lana?" she asked, as her face morphed to Lana's. "All the freaks loved Lana … often."

At which point the bartender walked back over to watch Clark being choked. As the bartender's body passed in front of the kryptonite, Clark started to feel his strength returning. Slowly he grabbed hold of the girl's fingers and peeled them from his neck, and then, using his super-speed he lunged for the bartender, grabbed him and dragged him over the bar, keeping him positioned between the kryptonite and himself. "Let me guess - you're made of lead."

Slowly Clark backed out of the bar, holding the bartender aloft, all the freaks staring at him. Suddenly he collided with a blind boy behind him.

Clark said an apology that was covered up by the loud music, and then the blind boy held his head as if he was looking straight at Clark and said "You will scream the word NO three times before this night is finished."

Clark ignored the boy and continued to leave the bar. As he finally got out he flung the bartender back inside and then started his super-speed journey to what was left of the Kent Farm.

His night was about to get worse.


	3. Times Change

"So, Doctor, could you help me find this Clark Kent?" asked Jimmy Olsen hopefully. "Or my Clark Kent, come to that."

"Not my problem," said The Doctor, fiddling with the Tardis controls, readying it for take-off. "Probably not even my reality."

"But I've got to find him," pleaded Jimmy.

"Couldn't you just build another one of those transporter devices?" asked Rose, confused by the fictional character's predicament.

"But I didn't build it," explained Jimmy. "It was Tempus."

Suddenly the cavernous interior of the Tardis was filled with noise, as the column at the center of the vehicle's control console started churning up and down.

"Although it was based on a design by HG Wells," continued Jimmy over the din.

Suddenly The Doctor flicked a switch and the Tardis grew silent.

"HG Wells you say?"

Jimmy nodded, wondering why The Doctor would be interested.

A look of concern crossed over The Doctor's face. "I knew I should never have had those chats with him."

"You chatted with HG Wells?" queried Rose.

"He was doing research for a book. He was really interested. What harm could it do?"

"But my HG Wells was from my world," interrupted Jimmy, "not from yours."

"How do you know that?" asked The Doctor. "I told him about traveling between realities as well as traveling between time. Worst of all I told him how."

"So this is all your fault," summarized Rose with a smile.

The Doctor ignored her and turned his attention back to Jimmy. "Finding the Clark Kent who got stuck in an exploding time machine won't be easy. Finding yours however is just a matter of retracing your steps."

"You can do that?" asked Jimmy disbelievingly.

"Should be able to with a little recalibration of The Tardis here and there. Your journey here will have left the usual particle tracks for us to follow back."

"Particle tracks?" asked Jimmy.

"Tachyons, anti-tachyons and … well the others won't get named until the thirtieth century and I'd hate to spoil the surprise. So, Jimmy, where was your last stop before reaching here?"

"Smallville," replied Jimmy.

"Well that's our first port of call," said The Doctor cheerfully and then started pulling panels away from the control console ready to make the necessary adjustments.

"Great," moaned Jimmy. "I can tell everybody I lost their Clark."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a future Smallville, Clark sped through the pounding rain to reach the Kent farm, but as he approached it he saw to his horror that it had been burnt to the ground. A millisecond later he was walking amongst the ruins of the only home he remembered, wondering how all of this could have happened. There was only one answer. It was his fault. It was all his fault. They'd always been there for him, but he hadn't been there for them, when it mattered most.

But this was only a building. It was the people who lived there that mattered most. Where were they? And then he remembered the words of the mutant girl he'd met earlier - _they're all out stoned in a field somewhere_ \- and then he remembered a vision he'd had once, and then, without even realizing it, he found himself standing in the cemetery surrounded by gravestones, and there, in the center of a circle of gravestones, he read the names upon them, the same names he'd read in the vision - Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Peter Ross, Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang. He always knew deep down inside that he'd outlive them all, but it wasn't meant to be like this.

"No!" he screamed, "No!", followed by a final scream of "No!" that was heard all through Smallville.

* * *

Rose Tyler sat on the ground, bored, bouncing a ball against one of the Tardis' interior walls, as The Doctor whistled away while dabbling with The Tardis' inner workings.

She looked at Jimmy, and then realized why she hadn't recognized him sooner. "You're the original Jimmy," she exclaimed.

"No, I'm not," replied Jimmy coldly.

"No, in my reality you got replaced by a younger actor."

"He's the original Jimmy," replied Jimmy Olsen.

"No, what I'm saying is -" started Rose.

"I know what you're saying," interrupted Jimmy, "but I've been to your reality before. I thought, after all that searching, that I was finally home, I thought I'd finally found Clark, but when I started to talk to him he kept calling me Michael and telling me that I wasn't in the show anymore and to just get over it. Of course I kept telling them I was really Jimmy Olsen but they all just gave me funny looks, and then I noticed the cameras everywhere and realized what was going on."

"So you understand what I meant about you being the original Jimmy Olsen."

"Yeah, but I've been to that reality with the other Jimmy too. Even managed to lose Tempus' diary there."

"Excuse me for asking," asked Rose, confused by Jimmy's story, " but who is that guy Tempus anyway."

"He was a villain from the future. He tried to kill Superman by traveling to the past to kill him as a baby. Of course Superman had the last laugh by trapping Tempus in 1866. Well, he would have had the last laugh, except that Tempus escaped and, before he returned to the future, he did a few things that created a separate time line."

"Like what?" asked a curious Rose.

"Well he fathered some children, and furnished his descendents with the knowledge to destroy Superman."

"And you're trying to stop them," concluded Rose.

"I'm one of them," replied Jimmy. "Tempus was my great-great-grandfather."


	4. Standing On A Bridge, Waiting In The Dark

Rose looked at Jimmy Olsen quizzically. "So you're trying to destroy Superman?"

"No," replied Jimmy, "not me. There's another descendent. I've got to find Superman and warn him before they kill him."

"But who could kill Superman?" she asked.

"Ultra Woman," replied Jimmy Olsen.

"And who's Ultr-"

Suddenly Rose's question was interrupted by a loud hum as the Tardis' controls sprang into life.

"Next stop, Smallville," announced The Doctor, standing at the control console grinning.

"So, is that just like the TV show?" asked Rose Tyler, mildly irked that her life of exploring new worlds and discovering new galaxies had suddenly been interrupted for a spot of channel-hopping.

"Don't know," replied Jimmy. "Never watched the show. Although I took a photo the first time I was there…"

Jimmy started searching his pockets but couldn't find it. "Great, I've lost it, just like I lost that other Jimmy Olsen's camera."

"What, the original Jimmy Olsen?" asked Rose.

"No, not that Jimmy Olsen," replied Jimmy, sympathizing with Rose over her confusion. He'd had a hard time keeping grasp of realities recently too, just as realities had had a hard time keeping grasp of him. "No, this was another reality altogether - this Jimmy had red hair and freckles and there were superheroes all over the place - you just wouldn't believe it. Anyway, I visited that Daily Planet and told them my story but they just laughed at me. After all, if there were multiple realities surely Superman and the other heroes would have come across them by now. Still, Jimmy Olsen loaned me his camera so that, if I was ever back in that reality, I could come back with some photographic evidence."

"How many realities have you been to?"

"Too many," replied Jimmy. "I've seen different Supermen, different Loises, different Perrys (if they really could be called Perry with their apathy towards Elvis), different Luthors, different Smallvilles."

The Doctor interrupted them as the loud humming noise waned. "Speaking of Smallville, we're here."

* * *

Moments earlier Lana Lang and Chloe Sullivan had reached the door of The Talon only to see a deserted street before them with no sign of Clark or the man who'd just been in. Now they just stood looking in amazement as, on the same street, a blue police telephone box suddenly pulsated into view.

"Do you see what I see?" asked Chloe, worried for her sanity as the vehicle of a clearly fictitious character finally became solid.

"Uh-huh," replied Lana.

"Doctor Who," murmured Chloe.

At which point the door to the Tardis opened and three figures emerged.

Chloe looked at the three figures, the guy calling himself Bart who she'd just seen in The Talon, a taller man with short brown hair and a leather jacket, and a blonde-haired girl. Sadly, for Chloe, there was a complete absence of plaid.

Chloe and Lana marched up to the strangers.

"Where's Clark?" asked Chloe, voicing the question that was on both their minds.

"And what's with this funny money?" added Lana, waving the dollar bills Jimmy had given her earlier in front of him.

"Relax," replied The Doctor. "There's no need to panic - Clark's just slightly lost for the moment."

"Lost?" echoed Lana. "Well shouldn't we try and find him?"

"Well, that's kind of difficult. We don't know where he is or when he is or what reality he's in (assuming that he's not stuck between realities)."

"So he could be lost forever?" asked Chloe.

"Exactly." The Doctor nodded and smiled reassuringly. "Now if you could just direct us to his parents we can prepare them for the possible eventuality that they'll never see him again."

* * *

As he wandered directionless through the pounding rain, Clark realized that he'd probably never see his parents again, or Lana or Chloe or Pete. What was Pete doing in that graveyard anyway? Had he come back to Smallville when he'd heard his friend Clark had gone missing? It didn't matter now - Pete, all of them, were dead. Nothing mattered anymore.

And then Clark noticed where he was, where he'd walked to. This bridge was where he'd first met Lex. If only he'd not been there on that day, then Lex would have died in the water below, the water in which he could now see mutant heads bobbing to the surface, and his parents and friends would still be alive.

"Feeling sorry for yourself?" asked a voice behind him. "Thinking this is all your fault?"

Clark didn't even bother turning. "Of course it's my fault. If I … if the meteors had never come to Smallville then …" Clark's words got stuck in his throat just as tears started to come to his eyes.

"Pathetic," replied the voice. "I don't know why my master cares so much about you."

Clark turned towards the voice and, as if on cue, there was a flash of lightning, illuminating the stranger. He was wearing a long cape and his headgear prevented Clark from seeing all of his face.

Unimpressed, Clark turned away again. "You may as well leave, stranger. Leave me with my memories."

"That's all you've got left, isn't it?" replied the stranger. "Thinking of giving up?"

"Why do you care?" asked Clark, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I've come to help you."

"What, is this one of those _It's A Wonderful Life_ things?" laughed Clark, through his tears. "Are you an angel who's going to show me how Smallville could have been _even_ worse if I hadn't shown up?"

The stranger was silent.

"No, it couldn't be any worse, could it? This wasn't how things were supposed to be."

And then Clark remembered the photograph that the other stranger had dropped inside The Talon hours, or was it years, ago. He'd forgotten all about it - thinking it must be a fake, not knowing the stranger could travel through time - but now he put his hand in his pocket, desperate to dig it out, to see that wedding photo, where he was marrying Lois, desperate for a look at the future that should have been.

He pulled the photo out but it wasn't how he remembered it. The bride Lois was as beautiful as before, although her face looked sadder than he remembered, and her white wedding dress had now turned black and, most importantly of all, she was now marrying Lex Luthor. "The photograph … it's changed," he gasped.

"Looks like time's catching up with you," observed the stranger.

Clark turned to the stranger and, to the stranger's surprise, was smiling like an idiot. "But this photo's got the date written on it, and that date's in the future. That means that that time-traveler will be there at Lex and Lois' wedding and that means I can get him to take me back in time with him."

"Well actually someone will come to rescue you before then," explained the stranger, "but they'll be too late." And with that he took a wooden lead-lined box out from beneath his cape, and opened it to reveal a glowing green rock.

"But I thought you were here to help me," said Clark, backing up against the side of the bridge.

"I was, but that's when I thought you were feeling suicidal."

Clark struggled to reply "I still am," as, using all his remaining strength he threw himself over the side of the bridge.

Sadly it was to no avail, as, just before he hit the water, Clark felt something wrap around his ankle. As Clark struggled on the end of a rope, the stranger pulled Clark back up to the bridge and then, in the green glow of the kryptonite, held Clark up by his neck.

"Who are you?" asked Clark.

"I'm Batman!"


	5. Brownian Motion

"Martha will be here soon," explained Jonathan as Jimmy, Rose and The Doctor stood there waiting to impart their bad news.

Even though this was his third visit to this reality, Jimmy was pretty sure he hadn't encountered this Jonathan Kent before. He'd have definitely remembered Bo or Luke Duke being Clark's father. While he waited for Martha to turn up, he started to wonder if she'd turn out to be Daisy Duke - no, that would be wrong in oh so many ways.

Just before his mind started wondering if Boss Hogg would be Lex Luthor, Martha Kent made her entrance. He recognized her instantly, he'd even seen her at Clark's wedding back in the future that might no longer be. Of course when he'd seen her then he'd just assumed she was who she was when he'd met her in a previous reality, Lana Lang. But now it turned out that Lana Lang was Clark Kent's mother - that was wrong in even more ways than Daisy Duke.

As The Doctor explained things to the Kents, kindly taking responsibility for something that was all Jimmy's fault, Jimmy looked at the Kents' faces - he'd expected them to have trouble believing this unbelievable tale, but raising Clark had obviously conditioned them to expect the unexpected.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" asked Jonathan.

"No, there's only one man who could track him down now. Someone who knows all about time and space. I got in touch with him on my way here. He's going back to the scene of Clark's disappearance, see what he can find."

This was the first Rose Tyler had heard of this, and she was surprised The Doctor hadn't mentioned it until now. "So who is it? HG Wells?"

"No way," replied The Doctor. "He's caused enough trouble, whizzing through time and space picking up passengers without a second thought. The man's just irresponsible."

"Einstein?" guessed Jimmy.

"Near, very near," replied The Doctor. "Actually it's Einstein's owner."

* * *

As the two boys struggled to drag their latest discovery through the debris, they heard a loud exclamation from their father.

"Great Scott!" he yelled, as he looked at the readout from the large clockwork particle tracer he carried on his back (the localized EMP blast he'd used to halt the Daleks preventing him from using his smaller electronic version). "Correlating this readout with the traces of plaid shirt in the surrounding subspace and extrapolating the subject's journey leads us to Smallville, five years on from his original starting point. He's gone back to his future. The odds against that are astronomical."

The boys stifled a yawn at their father's amazement and used their sophisticated set of levers to haul their latest finding onto the train.

"Quick, Jules, Verne, we've got to go and rescue Clark Kent from the future before time unravels and the Universe is destroyed."

"Yeah, whatever, we've really got to rush. It's not as if we've got a time machine," said Jules sarcastically, while Verne dismantled their finding, and placed the blue creature from inside it into a jar.

Dr. Emmett Brown, ignoring his children's apathy towards his over-reacting, pulled the lever on his time-traveling train to set it in motion. "Next stop: Smallville."

* * *

"Batman?" asked Clark disbelievingly. "What sort of name is that?"

The stranger threw Clark to the ground. "It's a name that strikes fear into the heart of criminals everywhere."

"I'm not … a criminal," gasped Clark, struggling to stay conscious.

"No, but you'd stop my master achieving his goal. A new world order. A utopia with no crime."

"Your master?"

"Ra's Al Ghul!" replied Batman.

"And I thought your name was bad," laughed Clark before lapsing into unconsciousness.

Batman walked over to Clark's still body and held one of his batarangs to Clark Kent's throat "Sorry, Clark, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made."

Suddenly from behind him Batman heard the sound of a train in the distance. He turned around but couldn't see it, and then looked up, and there it was flying towards him faster and faster.

Suddenly it stopped, with deceleration that he wouldn't have thought possible, inches away from him, and then turned sideways so that he could see the train's driver.

"I've come for Clark Kent," said a white-haired man looking at him.

"Dr. Brown I presume. Ra's told me you'd be here," said Batman, and then, slitting Clark Kent's throat, added "Unfortunately you're too late."


	6. And Then There Was Non

"Let him go," yelled Doc Brown to Batman. "There's still time to save time."

Batman let go of Clark Kent's body and it slumped to the ground with a thud.

"Times change," observed Batman as he watched the blood from Clark's neck wound being washed away by the rain only to be replaced by yet more blood. For a second his mind went back to a Gotham alleyway many years ago, but now was not the time for such thoughts. All that mattered was that this obstacle to Ra's Al Ghul's master plan must be eliminated.

"Okay, you asked for it," said Doc Brown. "Jules, Verne, show him your latest project."

The Dark Knight looked up in surprise as a metallic object started to hover down.

"It's called a Dalek," explained Dr. Emmett Brown. "Only my sons have removed the homicidal alien controlling it and replaced it with a primitive artificial intelligence."

"And this Dalek's going to kill me?" asked Batman disbelievingly.

"No, that would be against its pacifist principles," pointed out Jules. "It's going to reason with you."

"Negotiate! Negotiate!" screeched the Dalek, as it set down on the bridge. And then its electronic eye scanned the scene, and its logic circuits hatched a plan. Suddenly a blast from its gun whizzed towards Batman, narrowly missing him, and hitting the bridge floor behind him, just where he'd set down his lump of kryptonite. As the bridge floor gave way, leaving the kryptonite to tumble to the waters below, and before Batman could even reach his utility belt, another blast from the Dalek's gun removed one of Batman's ears from his cowl, leaving his mask, like the fight, distinctly one-sided.

"It's too late anyway," he said, looking at Clark's still body at his feet, lying in a washed out pool of blood.

Dr. Brown, his sons, the Dalek and Batman were silent for a moment as they watched Clark for what seemed like an eternity and then Batman turned away.

"It's over," exclaimed Batman. "Clark Kent's a dead man."

Suddenly a hand clutched at Batman's ankle.

"Dead men don't wear plaid," said Clark as, still holding Batman's ankle, he raised himself, and Batman, off the ground. Then he swung Batman round and round his head before letting go.

Any onlookers seeing Batman soaring through the air on that rain drenched night would have truly believed that a man could fly (although when he crashed through the defaced sign proclaiming Smallville to be _The Meteor Freak Capital Of The World_ they might have begun to doubt it). However those same onlookers would have been in no doubt that a train could fly when Dr. Brown gave Clark Kent a ride out of this future that should never have happened.

* * *

"What, you're just leaving?" asked Chloe Sullivan.

"That's right," explained The Doctor with a vacant smile on his face. "Our job here is done. We've got to return this man," he pointed at Jimmy Olsen, "back to his proper reality."

"But what about Clark?" demanded Lana.

"Don't worry, he's safe. We've arranged for our scientist friend to bring Clark to us and, once we've finished with him, we'll bring him back here."

Lana Lang couldn't work out why The Doctor would need Clark, unless perhaps he needed some farm chores doing. Chloe Sullivan on the other hand knew about Clark's amazing abilities, but even if The Doctor hadn't needed him and had already managed to bring Clark Kent back to Smallville, Chloe Sullivan's next line would have been the same.

"I'm coming with you."

"Sorry?" said The Doctor in surprise.

"I'm a reporter and this could be the story of a lifetime."

The Doctor smiled. "But nobody would ever believe it."

"Just like most of her stories," interrupted Lana, trying to be helpful.

The Doctor shrugged. "Okay, you can come along."

"Well if she's coming, I'm coming too," reasoned Lana.

"Why would you want to come?" asked The Doctor.

"Clark's my friend. That's why, and besides, that guy still owes me money for his coffee."

"Come on in," said The Doctor with a sigh.

"So where are we going first?" asked Chloe, the minute she got in the Tardis.

"We're following Jimmy Olsen's path through time and spaces to get him back home," explained The Doctor, starting up the Tardis.

"He's not called Bart?" asked a confused Lana Lang.

Chloe's mind suddenly went back to an intern she'd met at the Daily Planet. "He's called Jimmy Olsen?"

The Doctor ignored them and turned his attention to Jimmy. "So, Jimmy, what's this next world like?"

"It was kind of cold," he replied. "This big icy castle affair. I didn't stick around there too long."

Suddenly the Tardis stopped with a shake, throwing everyone to the ground.

"Bit of a bumpy landing," observed The Doctor. "Maybe my earlier alterations didn't go as well as planned."

Getting up he wandered over to the door and opened it, only to see that the Tardis was sliding down what appeared to be an ice corridor with somebody flying feet first towards him. Either that or they'd landed on the side of a crevasse and the person was actually falling towards them.

Sidestepping the incoming man in black, The Doctor watched as the Tardis' artificial gravity took hold of the new arrival and dragged him to the floor, causing him to skid along it with his remaining downward (which was relatively speaking horizontal) velocity.

Rose Tyler looked at the stunned man lying on the Tardis' floor. "I know him. It's General Zod."

The others looked at her blankly as the man she'd called General Zod got to his feet and used his hands to brush himself clean. As he lifted his gaze from his black outfit, his eyes suddenly filled with panic as he saw a larger figure flying towards him.

As the second arrival skidded along the floor, knocking over the first arrival, Chloe asked "So, do you recognize this one as well?"

"Yes, Non," said Rose.

"Which is it?" asked Lana, who didn't think much of Rose's French pronunciation.

"No, his name's Non," explained Rose for the benefit of Lana.

"So there's Non and General Zod," stated Chloe, checking she'd got the names right for her story.

"And Ursa," added Rose, as yet another black-clad figure skidded along the Tardis' floor.

"I guess she's a Major," joked Chloe, and then, following the complete lack of response, she wished she hadn't.

At which point the three black-clad figures managed to clamber to their feet.

"Greetings, I am General Zod," explained the one that Rose had called General Zod. "I come in peace."

"Don't trust him, Doctor," shouted Rose. "They're villains."

Non looked at her, with a hurt expression on his face.

"Nonsense, we don't mean any harm" said Ursa, looking at Rose and deciding that she should be the first to die.

What Ursa didn't know of course was that in an hour's time one of the Tardis' present inhabitants would indeed be the first to die, but that person wouldn't be Rose Tyler.


	7. A Walk In The Park

Clark looked at the man who had rescued him. A man he'd only seen before in movies.

"How can you be real?"

"You'd be amazed at what's real, Clark," replied Dr. Emmett Brown as the train's whistle blew while they traveled at 88 miles per hour through the realities.

"And you're taking me back to my own time?"

"No, my friend The Doctor needs your help first."

"But I've got to get back," protested Clark, "and fix the future."

"Don't worry Clark, you've got plenty of time," Doc Brown reassured him.

"But I've got to know everything's okay," whined Clark, and then he remembered something. "Wait a minute, that photograph, I put it back in my pocket just as Batman attacked."

Dr. Emmett Brown looked at Clark with concern as he fished a battered photograph out of his pocket.

"It's changing," said Clark as he looked at the picture. "The wedding dress is turning white and -"

At which point Doc Brown snatched the photograph out of Clark's hands and ripped it into little pieces. "You're not supposed to know the future, Clark. Even knowing your destiny can stop it from happening."

"I don't care about my destiny," admitted Clark. "It's Smallville's destiny I was worried about."

"You should care about your destiny, Clark. There are those who'd try to destroy it, destroy your past even."

"Who'd do that?"

"Well, there's Tempus for one, although strictly speaking it's the other Superman he's trying to destroy."

"The other Superman!" exclaimed Clark.

"Sit down, Clark. It's time for a chat about realities."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a different time and reality, The Doctor and Jimmy Olsen had just finished bringing the rest of the passengers up to speed with their plans.

"So, let me see if I've got this straight," said Chloe, "after all, I've got to write all this down at the end of the day. First of all, Doc Brown's took the last train to Clarks-ville to bring back our friend who'll be joining us at our next stop."

The Doctor nodded, while Chloe continued.

"Meanwhile in some other reality there's some superhero with the imaginative name of Superman who trapped his enemy Tempus in the past. With time on his hands, Tempus set about making handheld time/reality transportation devices and creating some descendants to destroy Superman in the future, i.e. Jimmy's present, which being in the '90s is actually mine and Lana's past."

Jimmy Olsen nodded, while Chloe continued.

"Anyway there were two descendants of Tempus who worked at the Daily Planet, and were to use Tempus' devices, his diaries, and the knowledge contained therein, to bring down Superman. Jimmy Olsen was one of those descendants, but he knew that the destiny planned for him was wrong and fought against it. The other was Cat Grant who, afraid Jimmy would spoil her destiny as well, tried to kill Jimmy, but, in the tussle that followed, he managed to escape with a damaged teleportation device. Since then he's been trying to get back to his own reality, before Cat Grant, rather than that reality's Lois Lane (who doesn't even have the sense to have me as a cousin), ends up taking Superman's powers and becoming Ultra Woman and thereafter goes on a rampage through all realities killing all the incarnations of Superman."

"Kind of simple when you put it like that," interrupted Lana.

"So, we're following his path back through the realities, so that we can hopefully save Superman. Meanwhile," continued Chloe, gesturing towards the three new arrivals, "Curly, Larry and Moe here have turned up, claiming to be nice guys, while Rose accuses them of being psychopathic Phantom Zone villains thanks to the concrete evidence that she saw it in a movie once."

Rose Tyler stared daggers at Chloe Sullivan, while General Zod, Non and Ursa stood in the corner looking like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

"That's about it," said The Doctor as the Tardis stopped at its next port of call. "Now if everybody can get out I'll try and make some repairs to the Tardis."

"So, what's this reality like?" Rose asked Jimmy.

"Nice tropical forest. Totally deserted, although there's a few buildings here and there. I didn't have any trouble here, although my camera went missing."

As Chloe stepped out of the Tardis she immediately spotted a building. "Let's go there," she cried, although all of the others just wanted to walk around. Still it didn't matter, she'd go there alone. It was a matter of life and death for Chloe for, despite the Tardis' massive interior, she'd yet to find a coffee dispenser anywhere within it. As she finally reached the building, and then found a kitchen, and then found some coffee supplies it looked like this lone expedition had been a particularly brilliant idea.

As she later sat by the window, looking out, the coffee fumes from her cup bringing her olfactory happiness, she spotted Non outside staring intently at a log. Turning her attention back to her beloved coffee cup, which sat there on the table, she suddenly noticed some ripples on the coffee's surface just like in a film she'd once seen.

Suddenly she looked outside and saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex stomping towards Non. Non just stood there in shock as the Tyrannosaurus Rex reached him and then, lowering its head, picked Non up in its mouth.

Chloe forgot all about her coffee as she saw the T Rex raise its head and swallow Non, and then bowed its head back down and looked straight through the window at her. It looked like Non was just an appetizer and her brilliant idea hadn't been so brilliant after all.

"Talk about a Non starter," she said to herself, as clutching her cup of coffee tightly, she backed away from the window.

* * *

High in a tree, in a nest containing several young pterodactyls and a camera the older pterodactyl had picked up somewhere, one of the pterodactyls suddenly noticed a train appearing in the sky.

Doc Brown shouted to Clark. "Look down there! I can see the Tardis."

But Clark's eyes weren't on the Tardis, they were using their X-ray capabilities to try and locate where he could hear Chloe Sullivan's screams coming from. Suddenly he saw her, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex that was roaring at her.

"Bye, Doc, I can take it from here," said Clark as he leapt from the train.

"Bye, Clark," replied Doc Brown (too late for Clark, whose hearing was still focused on Chloe, to hear him) and then increased the speed of the train back up to 88 miles per hour and departed that reality to head for home.

Clark landed half a mile away from the T Rex, but with his super-speed that was largely irrelevant. Suddenly the T Rex saw the figure of Clark Kent standing between him and the building that held a shaking Chloe Sullivan within. Quickly its mouth zoomed towards the plaid snack, while Clark drew his fist back.

Clark normally had to pull his punches, but this time he pulled it a lot less than usual, as his fist connected with the T Rex's jaw. The T Rex's head was flung back and then the rest of its body followed suit as it fell unconscious to the ground.

* * *

Ten minutes later a shaken Chloe Sullivan, along with Clark Kent, his shirt still blood-stained from his encounter with Batman, returned to the others, who'd all stayed in the vicinity of the Tardis.

"Clark, Chloe, what happened to you?" asked Lana Lang.

"A dinosaur ate Non, it would have eaten me too but …" began Chloe.

"… it had a heart attack," concluded Clark.

Chloe looked at Clark in disbelief. What sort of idiot would swallow that dumb story?

"Oh, that poor dinosaur," sighed Lana, tears coming to her eyes. Of all the creatures who didn't roam the Earth, dinosaurs were probably Lana's favorites, mainly because they reminded Lana of her parents who, like the dinosaurs, had been made extinct by a meteor.

Zod held Ursa close to him, pretending to commiserate with her over Non, and whispered in her ear. "You realize who this Clark is, don't you, Ursa?"

"Yes," she whispered back, "the son of Jor-El."

"I'll make him kneel before me," whispered Zod, tears of joy coming to his eyes.

Ursa looked over at Clark, standing there in his torn shirt, and licked her lips. "My thoughts exactly."

* * *

Minutes later, the Tardis disappeared from the forest landscape.

"So, Clark, sorry for stranding you wherever," said Jimmy, within the Tardis.

"That's okay," said Clark, not eager to talk about what he'd seen in the future Smallville. "So where exactly are we going next?"

"A wedding in Metropolis. I'd show you a photograph but I lost it."

"Great, I love weddings," interrupted Lana.

"Don't bet on it," replied Jimmy apprehensively.


	8. Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue

Lois Lane looked down one last time at her bouquet of roses and violets before throwing it backwards over her shoulder, towards the many hands waiting to catch it behind her. As the object flew through the air, Chloe made an attempt to grasp it but was suddenly distracted by the faces of one of the photographers (Clark would have been distracted by it too except at that moment he only had eyes for Lois).

"Jimmy Olsen," Chloe gasped as the bouquet slipped through her fingers. It was back when she was a teenager that she'd last seen _that_ Jimmy Olsen and suddenly her mind went back to an adventure that she still had trouble believing actually happened.

Seconds later, her hand was on Jimmy Olsen's shoulder. "Hey, Jimmy, long time no see."

Jimmy turned around to face her, confusion on his face. "Sorry, lady, you're mistaken. I'm sure I'd have remembered meeting you."

"Chloe," she said, "Chloe Sullivan," and then, looking at his blank expression, she suddenly began to realize what was going on. "Oh, wait a minute, we haven't met yet."

Jimmy looked alarmed and then backed away from her and disappeared into the crowd.

"Who was that, Chloe?" asked a voice from behind her. It was Jimmy Olsen … the real Jimmy Olsen.

"Oh, nobody, Jimmy. Just a guy I once knew when I was younger."

"Well he certainly had an antique camera," observed Jimmy. "Looked like once that still uses film. Can't remember the last time I used one of those."

Jimmy's mention of a camera suddenly reminded her of a time long ago, that was also round about now. "Hey, Jimmy, got any pictures of the happy couple?"

"Sure, here's one with all the guests I could cram into one photo," he said, printing her a copy off.

Chloe looked at the picture of Clark and Lois, along with herself, Perry White, Martha Kent, Pete Ross, Lucy Lane, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Steve Lombard, and various others. It was just the photograph she'd been expecting.

"That'll do nicely she said," as she waved goodbye to Jimmy and made her way over to an artificial plant in the corner where she knew her younger self would be spying on her.

* * *

Chloe Sullivan held her breath as her older self approached her hiding place. The Doctor had argued with her about leaving the Tardis, warned her that her actions may change the future, but she'd kept reassuring him that he had nothing to worry about. Even Clark had seemed pretty worried about the future being altered in any way but Chloe had stood her ground until, finally, The Doctor had let her, and her alone, leave for her spot of sight-seeing, warning that if she wasn't back in ten minutes the Tardis would be leaving without her. Now, with her future self about to discover her, it looked like she should have heeded The Doctor's warnings more closely.

"Hi, me." said her older self. "Don't panic. I remember my older self finding me when I was exactly your age."

The younger Chloe parted some of the plant leaves to look out at the older Chloe. "So what happens next?"

"You come out of there and talk to me," replied Chloe The Elder, "and Jimmy Olsen over there can't believe his eyes."

"Okay," said Chloe The Younger, stepping out from behind the plant. "I guess you know why I'm here and exactly what I'm going to say so there's not a lot of point in me talking."

The older Chloe nodded. "Whereas I cannot say anything for fear of revealing to you your future and thereby possibly jeopardizing the chances of it occurring."

The two were silent for a moment.

"Only kidding," laughed the older Chloe. "I remember the older Chloe telling me anything I wanted to hear, so go ahead and ask your questions. After all, you've got a story to write."

The older Chloe looked at the younger Chloe, looking younger than she'd ever remembered herself looking. As she waited for the first question she realized that she'd have to avoid answering it.

"So, I managed to avoid the hereditary mental illness thing?"

"Can't say," replied her older self. "Next question."

Chloe looked a bit downhearted. "And it looks like Clark ended up marrying Lois?"

"Wow, and I thought an ability to state the obvious was Lana's specialty," laughed Chloe. "Yeah, she married Clark, but she's welcome to him."

"You're just saying that," said Chloe, "trying to make ourselves feel better."

"Maybe," lied Chloe, since her previous words had been the truth. After all, Lois hadn't been the first person in their family that Clark had asked to marry him. Her younger self hadn't learned everything about Clark yet, but she had. All the dreams of marrying Clark and the two of them growing old together had dissipated as Chloe found out more and more about him. Even as she'd heard the wedding vows today, she'd seen the futility in applying them to Clark - in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part - just words. Clark wasn't human, Clark was so much more, and how could she ever fully hope to understand him, to share her feelings, with somebody so, so … alien. Chloe had learned everything about Clark, but even now she still knew nothing.

The younger Chloe looked at her older self, seeing the sadness in her eyes. "So, where's Lana today?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Well, there's a tragic tale," started Chloe, about to tell her younger self about Lana's plane being delayed, when she was suddenly interrupted by her younger self.

"Wait a minute," the younger Chloe said looking at her watch. "My time's almost up. I've got to get back fast."

"Here, take this," said the older Chloe, shoving the photograph her way.

"What's this?"

"It's a photograph of your future," replied the older Chloe. "This way you'll know that you haven't messed things up."

"Who's going to mess things up?" asked Chloe. "Is it the Phantom Zone villains?"

"There's no time," yelled the older Chloe, motioning for her younger self to leave.

Chloe looked at her watch, and then started running in the direction of the Tardis, shouting back over her shoulder "See you when I'm older."

"Yeah, we'll have to get together," shouted back the older Chloe, who then looked at the ground wistfully, wishing that she could have told Chloe the truth. The Phantom Zone villains wouldn't be her main problem, it would be Clark - he was his own worst enemy.


	9. Completing The Line-Up

As Chloe Sullivan ran out of the church, she failed to notice the large limousine parked outside. If she'd looked at the limousine minutes earlier she might have noticed President Luthor getting out, whereas if she'd looked at it minutes later she'd have definitely noticed a charred Volkswagen colliding with it. At the moment though it was, by large limousine standards, entirely un-noteworthy and so it was just as well it went unnoticed.

What Chloe Sullivan couldn't fail to notice however, as she neared her destination, was the bald figure, dressed all in black, standing there admiring the Tardis.

"Lex?"

Lex, an older Lex than Chloe was used to, turned towards her. "I noticed this police telephone box on my way here. Interesting phenomenon, don't you think?"

Chloe watched Lex, standing there in his black coat, his hands in his pockets and a knowing look on his face. She recognized that look, but she'd never seen it on Lex's face before, only Lionel's.

Lex continued. "I consider myself something of a Doctor Who fan, young Miss Sullivan, and was therefore somewhat surprised when a blue police telephone box was observed in Smallville, only for a few minutes, back in March 2004. Now, I'd normally put this sort of unbelievable event down to a suicidal streak in my informant, but the police telephone box appeared again in 2005, this time reportedly remaining outside The Talon for several hours, until several people, including yourself and Lana Lang, climbed into it and it dematerialized."

"You can't be serious," laughed Chloe.

"That's what you told me then," countered Lex. "So do you care to explain to me how you haven't aged since that day?"

Chloe looked at Lex and knew that not telling him the truth would only be delaying the inevitable. "Okay, Lex, it's the Tardis. Turns out that, in some reality, it's actually real."

"The Doctor's in there?" gasped Lex, suddenly sounding like an awestruck fan rather than the President Of The United States.

Chloe nodded. "And I better get in there quick or he'll be leaving without me."

"I'm coming with you," said Lex matter-of-factly.

"No, Lex, you can't. I know the Tardis is big inside but we've already got The Doctor, Clark, Lana, Zod, Ursa, Rose, and little Jimmy. It's confusing enough as it is."

"It doesn't matter," explained Lex. "I'm The President and I've got jurisdiction here. Now let me see The Doctor."

"Okay," said Chloe, using the key The Doctor had given her earlier to get inside The Tardis, "but don't get your hopes up."

* * *

While Chloe had been at the older Clark's wedding, the younger Clark had been sat in the Tardis talking to Rose, who was bringing him up to speed with the reason for their reality-spanning escapades and the nature of The Doctor. Just like Clark himself, The Doctor was the last remaining member of his race, although, unlike Clark, he had two hearts and he fought alien monsters and so on and so on but Clark was finding it difficult to concentrate, his attention invariably being drawn to Zod and Ursa, sat there silently across from him.

Lana stood by the Tardis' control console with Jimmy while The Doctor was regaling them with tales of his past lives, but, just like Clark, her attention kept wandering. She just couldn't help looking at Clark, noticing that he'd been deliberately avoiding her gaze since he returned from whenever and wherever, and also noticing that he couldn't help looking over at Ursa.

Normally Ursa would have seen the way that Clark was looking over at her and would be working out ways to turn it to her advantage, but any feelings of deviousness had been replaced by feelings of melancholy, and it was all because of Non. Only hours ago they'd had infinite power at their disposal, but Non's death had hammered home their new mortality - she almost wished she was back in The Phantom Zone where they'd spent all those decades not aging.

Zod sat there, looking at Ursa, knowing that she was feeling as helpless as he was. But all they had to do was wait. After all, The Doctor was taking them to a weapon which could transfer Superman's powers, and Zod was determined that those powers would be his, just as young Clark's powers would go to Ursa. And then they'd have infinite life-spans with an infinite number of realities to conquer and rule.

Suddenly Zod's dreams of multiversal domination were interrupted by Chloe Sullivan bursting into the Tardis.

"Hey, everybody, I've brought an old friend with me."

Lex Luthor entered and cast his gaze around the Tardis. "I thought it would be bigger."

"And who are you?" asked The Doctor, with barely disguised disdain.

"I'm President Lex Luthor and you're taking me with you."

Clark turned his gaze away from Lex, still remembering the freaks Lex had created in that hopefully averted future.

Zod, Ursa and Jimmy looked at the man claiming to be Lex Luthor. It definitely wasn't any of the Lex Luthors they remembered.

"Wow, you're old," exclaimed Lana.

"And you're Lana," retorted Lex. "I think I win."

Suddenly Chloe's cell phone started ringing. Shocked, Chloe answered it. "Hello?"

After listening to the caller talking for a few seconds, she then proceeded to pass the phone to The Doctor. "It's old me for you. She says that it's urgent."

"Thanks," said The Doctor, and then turned his attention from Chloe to Chloe. "So, what's so urgent?"

The Doctor looked thoughtful as he listened to the older Chloe before finally replying "Typical! Okay, I'll sort everything out, don't worry. Oh, and Chloe, do we end up taking Lex?"

The Doctor grimaced as he ended the phone call. "Okay, Mister President, looks like you're along for the ride."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Lex, "but where exactly are we going? Strange alien worlds?"

The Doctor smiled. "Even better, Lex. We're going to save Superman."

"Good grief!" exclaimed Lex.

"Actually, Lex, we're going to save all Supermen," added Jimmy.

Just as Lex was having second thoughts, The Doctor activated the control console and the Tardis dematerialized, only to reappear moments later (although years earlier) in a different Metropolis.

"Okay, everybody out," said The Doctor, opening the door of the Tardis. "I've got to pop back to the other Metropolis to tidy up some loose ends."

The Tardis' passengers poured out onto the sidewalk.

Suddenly Lana saw a shadow overhead. "Look! Up in the sky!" she yelled.

"It's a bird! It's a plane!" added Rose enthusiastically, trying to get into the spirit of things.

All the others looked at her strangely. How could she possibly mistake a flying man for a bird or plane.

Clark looked up at the flying man. Nice color scheme, he thought, and then suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Clark," said The Doctor, "you better come with me. We need to talk."


	10. Hearts and Minds

"Clark," began The Doctor, "I think there's something we need to discuss."

Clark looked at The Doctor blankly and managed to refrain from saying "What's up, Doc?" while The Doctor continued.

"Now you and I both know what it's like to be the last member of an alien race, and, of course we come into contact with human females but, as we all know, such relationships are doomed to failure."

Clark looked stunned. "They are?"

"Well, there's the obvious longevity difference, not to mention the fact that they'll never be our intellectual equal."

"That's not fair," replied Clark. "Sure I'm not too smart but -"

The Doctor gave Clark a wide smile. "That dumb act you do, Clark. Sheer brilliance! But I'm sure with that mind of yours you can think at least a hundred times faster than any man alive."

"Well, that's true, I guess," considered Clark, "but it just means that I can come up with a hundred more bad ideas than anyone else, and trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff takes me forever. To tell you the truth, the sheer library of babble my brain generates on a daily basis leaves me permanently clueless."

"But hasn't your brain developed any parallel thought processes yet to handle that sort of stuff," asked a surprised Doctor. "I've got tons of them, all with different personalities."

"No, there's just me in here," confessed Clark, "all alone with my thoughts."

"Hey, don't worry," replied The Doctor, "maybe you've just not heard from them yet. They can take a while to meet up. Anyway that's not important at the moment. I wanted to talk to you about Ursa."

"Ursa?"

"Yes, Ursa. Suddenly we're flung into a situation where somebody who thought he was the last survivor of an alien race suddenly encounters a female from that alien race. Suddenly powerful feelings start to surface, intelligence gets clouded by instinct."

Clark started to blush. "Do you really need to talk to me about this?"

The Doctor suddenly turned serious. "Yes I do, Clark. I saw the way you kept looking at Ursa."

"But I wasn't," protested Clark.

"There's no need to deny it. It's all very natural."

"But I wasn't looking at Ursa," insisted Clark. "I was looking at Zod."

"Oh, okay," replied The Doctor. "Well if you're attracted to Zod …"

"I don't know how to react to Zod," replied Clark, looking at the floor, confusion in his voice. "He sounds exactly like my father Jor-El."

"Oh, is that all?" said The Doctor. "I wouldn't worry about that. A man from a different reality sounds just like your father - so what, it's just a coincidence."

"Are you sure?" asked Clark.

"Yeah," said The Doctor reassuringly. "There's probably even a Clark from some other reality who looks and sounds just like your father."

"Well, actually, before he sounded like Zod, Jor-El did look and sound like me," explained Clark to a bemused Doctor.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the reality that The Doctor and Clark had recently vacated, Jimmy and Rose were walking towards The Daily Planet building so that Jimmy could apologize to that reality's Jimmy for losing his camera.

"Jimmy, I've been meaning to ask. Do you know Clark's secret?"

"Yeah," replied Jimmy. "Tempus' diary had all the details. Do you?"

Rose nodded, relieved that she didn't have to be careful about keeping Clark's secret in front of Jimmy. "So, do you think Lex knows Clark Kent's Superman?"

"Maybe," replied Jimmy, "but I'm pretty sure Clark doesn't. What about the others?"

"Well, The Doctor knows but I doubt if he cares, whereas, if the TV show and movies are to be believed, Lana, Zod and Ursa don't know, but Chloe knows that Clark's got powers but doesn't know he's an alien."

"Do you think we'll be able to keep Clark's secret from them all the way through this journey?" asked Jimmy.

"Hey, if glasses can fool these people, I'm pretty sure I can."

* * *

Chloe and Lana were sat in a diner, Lana having used the funny money she'd got off Jimmy (which was fortunately legal tender in this reality) to treat Chloe to coffee.

"So, what's your expert opinion?" asked Chloe.

"Well, the coffee's not up to Talon standards."

"No, I mean Clark. Why's he acting so strange since he got back from wherever he went?"

"No idea," replied Lana. "But I'll never forget the way he looked at me when you two returned from that dinosaur's cardiac arrest. It was like he'd seen a ghost."

"Maybe he had," said Chloe, taking out a photograph and sliding it towards Lana. "This is a wedding photo from the future," Chloe explained.

Lana looked at it, amused by the familiar, yet older, faces, and then she suddenly realized what Chloe was talking about. "Where am I?"

"I don't know," replied Chloe. "I never asked."

Chloe hated lying to her friend, but she would have hated telling her the truth even more.

* * *

Zod, Ursa and Lex, united by their love of the color black, had split off into their own fashion clique and were now wandering through the streets of Metropolis. General Zod marched ahead, trying to ignore the small talk that Ursa insisted on making with Lex. Still that small talk would end once Lex was dead.

"So, you're the President in this reality as well," said an unimpressed Ursa. "If we still had our powers you'd be surrendering to me about now."

"I'm sure we could come to some arrangement," said Lex, looking at the evil gleam in Ursa's eyes. Beneath her fair façade, Lex was sure there lurked a woman who'd delight in killing him. No doubt he'd end up marrying her.

"Come with me," she said, and suddenly pulled Lex into a back alley.

Zod carried on marching, confident that Ursa would make short work of Lex Luthor. General Zod's defeat at the hand of Superman had taught him to be more wary of the tactics he now used. Rather than use a straightforward assault, this was now a game of divide and conquer. When Chloe Sullivan had left them in that previous reality to search for coffee, he'd sent Non to take care of her. Of course Zod hadn't foreseen the dinosaur, which had been both inexcusable and careless, but this time would be different. Lex's inevitable death would be the first step in what would no doubt turn out to be General Zod's greatest victory - a victory that would make him immortal.

* * *

The Doctor looked at Clark. "So, you're not interested in Ursa at all?"

"No, Doctor, she's all yours."

The Doctor looked at Clark aghast. "What makes you think I'm interested in her?"

"Well, all that stuff you were telling me earlier about you being the last of your race and how suddenly a female's turned up for you."

The Doctor laughed. "I don't think you've been listening, Clark."

"Well, of course I've been listening," explained Clark. "I've been listening all along. That's how I know Ursa's a Gallifreyan like you."

"And what makes you think that?" asked an uncomprehending Doctor.

Clark rolled his eyes. "Why else would she have two heartbeats?"


	11. Star-Crossed Lovers

At The Daily Planet offices, Rose and Jimmy were talking to Lois Lane. Rose was amazed by how much she resembled the comic book Lois Lane - those artists had, albeit unknowingly, really captured her likeness.

"I'm afraid Jimmy's not around at the moment," said Lois, "although I'll tell him you lost his camera. He'll no doubt be thrilled."

"Is Clark Kent anywhere around?" asked Rose. "I was hoping I'd meet him."

Lois eyed Rose suspiciously. "No, he's not around either. But that's Smallville for you, never around when you need him."

* * *

Ursa pushed Lex hard against an alley wall.

"I've been wanting to do this since the moment I first set eyes on you," she purred.

"The feeling's mutual," replied Lex, putting his hands on her hips.

And then, without warning, she smashed her forehead against his face while, at the same time, introducing her knee to his groin. As Lex fell to the ground she looked at him pitifully.

"You seriously think I'd want you?" she asked, as she delivered a sharp kick to his head. "What sort of sick mind would come up with a Kryptonian/human relationship?"

Before he could answer her question, her elbow smashed into his stomach. As Lex writhed on the ground, remembering his younger days back in Smallville when this sort of beating was a common occurrence, and swiftly deciding that nostalgia was over-rated, he struggled to speak. "Disappointing."

Ursa paused for a second and raised an eyebrow quizzically. "I'm disappointing?"

"You should have killed me by now," groaned Lex. "Just my professional opinion."

Ursa kneeled in front of him. "Twenty four hours ago, I would have done. A fist would have gone straight through your stomach, or I'd have stared at you and engulfed you in flames, or I'd have breathed on you then shattered your frozen body. But a lot's happened since then."

Lex lay there, regaining his strength. If he was to be really critical, Ursa was making the same mistake that he'd made many times - delivering a lecture rather than a killing blow. Still, that mistake was keeping him alive, so silence seemed the best option.

"For a start," continued Ursa, "a be-wigged fool known as Lex Luthor led to us losing our powers. I realize that wasn't you, Lex, but still you're the nearest thing I've got right now. That's why I'm going to kill you slowly, prolonging your agony, and making you realize just what I've lost."

Lex tried not to smile. His death didn't matter to Ursa. All she wanted was someone to talk to, although his death would ensure that their conversation stayed private.

"I remember when we first got our powers, we felt so great, like we'd live forever. You can't imagine what it was like after decades of being powerless, deprived of sensation in that rotating two-dimensional Phantom Zone, to suddenly be really alive again, more alive than we'd ever been."

Suddenly Ursa lunged forward, and, the next thing Lex knew, her arm was wrapped around his throat. "Don't worry, Lex, I Haven't forgotten about the matter in hand, after all I'd hate to disappoint you. Now, where was I?"

"Alive," groaned Lex.

"Yes, more alive than ever … able to think faster., more clearer than we ever had before. You can't imagine what it's like Lex, so much more wonderful than anything you've ever known. I remember the night we took over the world, the night that lasted forever."

Lex, rapidly turning red-faced, tugged at her arm around his throat, but it wouldn't loosen.

"Zoddy and I made love, against a backdrop of stars, as we continuously orbited the Earth faster ever faster. Time stopped still for us, and then moved backwards, as we enjoyed each other like we'd never enjoyed each other before … our unmatchable endurance prolonging the act while our heightened senses took in every sight, sound, smell, heard our hearts beating in perfect unison. And then, finally tired, we'd rest while time caught up with us and then we'd start all over again. By the time we'd finally finished after days, maybe months, we looked around at the sky decorated with our past selves. Together we lay there, floating in the cosmic firmament … breathless."

Ursa suddenly remembered about Lex, and slackened her grasp on his throat so that he'd make it to the end of her story.

"And then, Zod gazed at me, not with his microscopic vision that had already examined my every pore countless times over, but with his X-ray vision, and within me he saw what we'd created - our star child, the last son of Krypton."

And with that, Ursa lifted Lex from the floor and swung him forcefully against a wall.

"And that's the end of the story," she said, as she swung her final kick towards him. She'd done this sort of thing before, numerous times, and she knew this blow would be fatal, and she knew that nothing could stand in its way.

* * *

"These two heartbeats?" asked The Doctor. "Was one faster than the other, and, say, not as noisy?"

Clark nodded.

"Ursa's pregnant," explained The Doctor. "There's going to be an Ursa Minor."

"Oh, I guess that's a possibility," Clark was forced to admit. Suddenly he heard the telltale hum, that told him the Tardis was traveling, die down. "So, why have we come back to my Metropolis, Doctor?"

"It's best you don't know, Clark. You just go outside and keep yourself to yourself. Whatever you do, don't do a Chloe and meet your future self."

"Would that be bad?" asked Clark.

"Would it ever. I remember when Rose met her younger self that time. Then again she made things even worse by saving her father from dying."

"She saved her father's life?" asked a stunned Clark.

"Yeah, of all the time travels clichés. Just imagine."

And as Clark left the Tardis that was all he could do … just imagine.

* * *

Back in a different reality's Metropolis, Chloe Sullivan finished her coffee and put the photograph that she'd shown to Lana away. If she'd have looked at it more closely she might have noticed that it had just started to change.


	12. Uninvited Guests

Ursa watched her booted foot flying towards Lex Luthor's head, only to be stopped short by a man appearing out of nowhere and grabbing her ankle. She immediately recognized the costume, although the face was different from the one she remembered.

"Superman?" she shrieked, as she hopped about on one foot, trying to maintain her balance.

"I'm glad you've heard of me," replied the most famous man on the planet. "Now perhaps you could tell me just what you think you're doing by attacking this man?"

Ursa was silent, as Superman maintained the grip on her ankle and looked towards the man her foot had been flying towards. "Are you okay?"

Lex looked at the Man of Steel with amusement. This Superman didn't recognize Lex, although, truth be told, if not for the outfit Lex wouldn't have recognized Superman. Still, there must be other similarities besides the costume, thought Lex, as his gloved hand took a small lead-lined box out of his pocket.

"Yes, I'm okay," replied Lex indignantly. "No thanks to you. What kept you? My Superman would have been here so much sooner. Almost had to go to Plan B."

"Your Superman?" asked Superman.

"Yes, I come from a different reality where Superman's got a different face than yours," explained Lex, "just like this reality's Lex Luthor has a different face than mine. By the way, does this work here?"

Lex opened his box, and Superman fell to the ground in agony, releasing his grasp on Ursa.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Lex, placing the box, and its glowing green contents, on the ground near Superman (well, just out of arm's reach, to be precise).

Lex turned his attention back to Ursa. "So, where were we?"

"I was about to kill you," she reminded him, resting one of her boots on Superman's back.

"Bad idea," replied Lex, straightening his jacket. "After all, I can get you back to Krypton."

* * *

Suddenly the non-melodious tones of Perry White's voice were echoing throughout the Daily Planet offices. "Great Caesar's Gho-" he started to exclaim as large swathes of mist suddenly appeared from nowhere along with, at the center of the mist, a fedora-wearing cloaked figure.

Suddenly every figure in the office froze in place, apart from the mysterious figure and two other young people, who he now addressed.

"Greetings, Rose Tyler and Jimmy Olsen," he exclaimed. "If men knew me, they would know me as The Phantom Stranger."

"Hi," said Rose. "Nice special effects."

"You are not of this reality," continued The Phantom Stranger, completely ignoring Rose's comment. "You are on a quest."

"That's about right," replied Jimmy with a nod.

"In that case I know of one that may help you," continued The Stranger. "She lives in New York. But first we must collect your companions."

And before either Rose or Jimmy could say anything, the mist grew thicker, engulfing them, and then they, like the mist, suddenly disappeared and the Planet's offices resumed their activity.

"-st!" said Perry White, although he wasn't sure why.

* * *

Time travel was complicated, very complicated - especially the way that Doc Brown had described it to Clark earlier that day. The thing that made it so extraordinarily complicated was that time travel worked differently in different realities. In some realities, such as the one that Jimmy Olsen had started out in, a time traveler's actions would cause a separate parallel timeline to be created. In other realities, such as the one that Clark was from and was now standing in the future of, there just wasn't the room for separate timelines, and so any temporal disturbances would cause reality to be overwritten. Even the thoughts he were having now, about going back in time to save Jor-El's life, were starting to cause ripples through time that were even now, imperceptibly, beginning to alter the world around him.

And then Clark realized just how ridiculous his thoughts were, as he stood in the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw the happiness on his face as he married Lois Lane. Suddenly his dreams of changing the past vanished and, as a result, reality gave a sigh of relief and returned to normal.

And then the other Clark winked at him. Oh no, his future self had spotted him. The Doctor had warned him to keep away from his other self, and now they'd made eye contact. Still, his future self had more important things to do than talk to him, and no-one else had noticed him. Not even the Chloe hiding behind the plant.

"Hello, Clark," whispered a voice beside him. "Not like you to hide in the shadows."

Clark Kent looked at the person who'd managed to creep up on him. He'd never seen the face before, not all of it, but Clark had quite a good memory. Actually, quite a good memory was something of an understatement. These days Clark's memory was such that he remembered every last detail of everything that went on around him - he could have told you all the words in all the articles on the Wall of Weird, not to mention the fonts used and where the creases were in the paper. Now, looking at the face opposite him, he instantly recognized the musculature, the skin tone, the imperfections. Of course that face, like its owner, had grown older since he'd last seen it, and the minute signs of damage around the chin suggested that the man had been in several fights during those years. Still there was only one man it could be.

"You're Batman!" Clark whispered back.

"Yes, but I'm wearing my Bruce Wayne costume, so I'd appreciate it if we stuck to civilian names."

"You tried to kill me …" started Clark, struggling to maintain a whisper.

"… in a future that never existed," continued Bruce calmly. "Yes, your older self told me about it. So, Clark, you've got a time machine. Big responsibility. Thinking of using it? Change the past maybe?"

"Why should I even talk to you?" replied Clark irritably. "You're just going to tell me not to use it."

"Not at all, Clark. If I had one, I'd use it."

"Well, I'm not going to," responded Clark. "The future's looking bright. I'm not going to risk changing that."

"Fair enough, Clark," said Bruce disappointedly. "One day you'll tell me about how you weren't ruled by destiny, about how you made your own future. Just a pity you're not prepared to make your own past. Anyway, enough of that, let's enjoy your wedding. It's just a shame Lana couldn't make it."

Clark looked around the church. He'd been looking at Lois so much he hadn't even noticed Lana was missing. Suddenly his super-hearing picked up the two Chloes' conversation:

So, where's Lana today?

Well, there's a tragic tale

Bruce Wayne felt a sudden draught and looked around to see that Clark was no longer there. Some things never changed, he thought. However, one thing had started to change, albeit imperceptibly - reality.


	13. A Place Where Nobody Dared To Go

After Lana Lang's choice of a coffee shop, Chloe Sullivan had gotten to choose the next place they'd visit on their tour of Metropolis. And so, while Chloe was sat in a corner of a library reading about this amazing world that they were now visiting, Lana Lang, who wasn't blessed with Chloe's caffeine reserves, was sat on a chair, struggling to stay awake. As she looked out of the window at the brilliant blue sky outside, she also glanced at her watch. It said four o'clock, which would have been four o'clock in the morning Smallville time, or maybe even four o'clock the next afternoon. It was so hard to tell with time travel. Regardless, she was ever so tired, probably suffering from Tardis-lag, and her eyes could stay open no longer.

And the next thing she knew a loud voice was saying "Lana Lang come with me!" and she was opening her eyes to see mist everywhere, along with a dark figure and Rose and Jimmy. Stupid dream, she thought, although it was better than the usual one about her parents meeting a rock. Still, she'd play along until something more interesting came along.

"What about Chloe?" she asked the stranger. "Can she come too?"

The Phantom Stranger nodded. "Indeed, she can. As soon as we manage to wake her."

* * *

Superman lay on the ground, a dream of Krypton suddenly giving way to consciousness as he felt once more the kryptonite-induced pain running through his body. He turned his face up to see an unfamiliar Lex Luthor standing there, uncaring of his plight, talking to the black-clad woman who had her foot rested on Superman's back.

"Krypton?" she said, her voice betraying none of the hope that was building up inside her. "And how exactly do you propose to get us there? If you hadn't heard, it's gone."

"It is now," replied Lex. "But there's always the Tardis."

"And you think you can pilot this Tardis?" asked Ursa, her flat voice almost tinged with excitement.

"No," admitted Lex, "but I think I know somebody who can."

Ursa took her foot off Superman and walked around him, closer to Lex, before sitting down on the Man of Steel's prostrate body. "Tell me more," she said, looking up at Lex with interest.

"Clark Kent should be able to with that mind of his," replied Lex. "He grows up to be Superman you know." Lex looked at the other Superman lying on the ground, hoping for a reaction, but he'd lapsed back into unconsciousness.

"Zod and I were aware of Clark's heritage," said Ursa. "When we first met him he was covered in the blood of a dinosaur he'd just slain."

"Sounds a bit bloodthirsty for Clark," observed Lex.

"You know us Kryptonians, we're all alike," said Ursa, rising to her feet.

"Oh, wait," said Lex, as he realized the meaning of Ursa's words. "You think that now I've told you about Clark you can kill me."

"The thought was crossing my mind," said Ursa, walking right up to Lex.

"But you'll need me to control him," explained Lex.

"I don't think I'll have any trouble controlling the boy. I've seen the way he looks at me."

"Trust me, Ursa. Nobody knows Clark like I do. Although if you're really desperate to try and kill me again, you're welcome to try, although I have to warn you - you really won't like my Plan B."

Ursa laughed. "You're all talk. But you amuse me, bald man, so I'll keep you around. At least until you've gotten us to Krypton."

Lex's face hinted at a smile. "Glad to see that you're seeing sense."

"And then I'll make you wish that I'd killed you this day," she added.

"As long as we know where we stand," said Lex, looking ambivalently at Ursa's face, millimeters in front of his.

Ursa turned away from Lex and walked back to Superman. Bending down, she rolled him over onto his back. "Got a sharp knife?"

Lex put a hand into one of his many pockets and pulled out a knife.

"Plan B?" asked Ursa.

"Plan F," replied Lex, passing her the blade. "What are you going to do?"

"Something I meant to do a long time ago," she said, grabbing Superman's costume in her hand and putting a knife to his chest.

"You realize that we're supposed to be saving Supermen," said Lex, as he saw Ursa, from the back, making rapid cutting movements with the knife. "Although I guess one won't hurt."

"I am saving him," explained Ursa, as she got to her feet.

"Saving him for later," she added, as she walked away from Lex and out of the alleyway, holding a piece of Superman's costume in her hand.

Lex looked at Superman, lying there unconscious, the S symbol cut out of his costume. Once a badge collector, always a badge collector, he mused, and then, kneeling down, he picked up his green rock and followed Ursa out of the alleyway.

* * *

"Where are we?" Chloe Sullivan asked The Phantom Stranger, as the mists around them started to get blown away, only to be replaced by the sights and sounds of a busy city.

"We are about to enter a doorway to nightmare," proclaimed The Phantom Stranger ominously.

"So where exactly are we?" asked Chloe Sullivan, hoping for a direct answer.

"Can anybody say where we really are, or if we're truly here at all?" replied The Phantom Stranger helpfully.

Lana Lang, having enough of this so-called Phantom Stranger, walked up to a passerby and asked him where they were. "This guy says we're in Greenwich Village," she shouted over to the others.

"Cool," said Chloe Sullivan, forgetting that she really needed to sleep. "So who's this woman you said was going to help us? Wonder Woman? One of the Justice Society?"

"No, even better," replied The Phantom Stranger, leading them into a doorway with a sign _Enter freely - unafraid_ above it. "Madame Xanadu!"

* * *

Clark Kent sat on a bench outside the church thinking about things. Although his ears picked up all the sounds around - the church bells, Chloe talking to Lex, a car crash, The Doctor talking to himself - he didn't pay any attention to them. At first he just thought the same thoughts that he'd thought back on that bridge in the alternate future Smallville. He thought about the corpses he'd seen when he'd used his X-ray vision to check the graveyard, about how he'd almost gone back to the Green Rock Café just so that he could get that mutant girl to show him the faces of his loved ones one last time. And then his thoughts moved back to the present, about how even this future seemed to be missing a Lana Lang, and about how his father appeared to have two distinct voices.

Suddenly Clark knew what he had to do. He'd spent enough time thinking, now was the time for action, time to get some answers. Time to change the past - which, as Clark was about to learn, was so much easier said than done.


	14. Identity Crisis

The Phantom Stranger led Chloe, Lana, Jimmy and Rose into a dimly-lit room. There, sitting at a table, was a striking raven-haired woman shuffling some Tarot cards. Suddenly she stopped and turned her attention towards them.

"Greetings," she said. "I am Madame Xanadu. Now if you'll please just take a seat I'll tell you your future."

"Already seen it," said Chloe flippantly, although, still tired, she eagerly took a seat. The others quickly followed suit.

"I suppose you want us to cross your palms with silver," said a suspicious Rose Tyler.

"No, child I only want to help," said Madame Xanadu. "Your quest is perilous and it's only fair that you know what you're facing."

"And if we know what's going to happen, then we can change it?" asked Lana.

Madame Xanadu smiled, and threw a Tarot card onto the table. "No, child. Only one person would attempt to change destiny."

Lana looked at the card.

The Fool

* * *

Clark's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by The Doctor calling him, and, just as The Doctor had finished calling him, Clark was standing there in front of him.

"Doctor, I've got a favor to ask."

"Sure, go ahead, anything," replied The Doctor, a smile on his face.

"Well…" hesitated Clark. "It's just that I want to go back into the past and see my father."

"You want to go back to Krypton before it exploded?" asked The Doctor incredulously.

"No, back to 1961. He was here, back then."

"So, why would you want to go back?" asked The Doctor, suddenly angry. "So you could warn him about Krypton exploding?"

Clark couldn't lie. "Yes, of course I'd warn him. I've got the chance to save billions of lives. What else can I do?"

"You'll do nothing, Clark," replied The Doctor, suddenly calm again, his mind a reality away. "That's what you'll do."

"Well, can I just go and see my father?" asked a desperate Clark. "I need to know that he's my real father. Need to know why my father's got two voices."

The Doctor turned away from Clark to open the Tardis door. "I'll think about it. In the meantime if you really want to see your father you could …"

"Could what?" asked Clark.

"Nothing," replied The Doctor. He could see the state Clark was in, and telling him to look in a mirror probably wouldn't help matters.

* * *

Madame Xanadu looked around the table. She put out her hand towards Lana Lang, and, cautiously, Lana Lang took it.

"Lana Lang," said Madame Xanadu. "But not the Lana Lang of this reality. Such sorrow you possess."

Letting go of Lana Lang's hand, she then offered her hand to Jimmy Olsen, who readily accepted it.

"Jimmy Olsen," she said. "Also, not of this reality, and only partly of his own."

"Neat trick, Yoda," said a skeptical Chloe as Madame Xanadu's hand reached out to her. "So what do you make of me?"

Madame Xanadu touched Chloe's hand, and then drew it away quickly. "You don't belong here." Visibly shaken, she then offered her hand to Rose Tyler.

Rose Tyler took her hand.

Madame Xanadu looked bemused. "Rose Tyler, a time traveler, like the Tylers of this reality … the Hourmen … but you're not of this reality, are you?"

Rose shook her head.

"Anyway, back to the future. Whereas I can see things clearly here - Luthor losing his presidency, the coming of a Supergirl - the fact that you're from different realities may make this difficult," said Madame Xanadu, closing her eyes. Chloe and Lana, stifling their yawns, were tempted to follow her lead.

And then she opened her eyes again. "I see a crisis looming. A crisis of identity. It all starts, as much as anything can be said to start, with the death of a housewife. I see an accident, somebody starting a fire. Lois Lane's involved in it somewhere."

Rose was unimpressed. It sounded like this fortune cookie was predicting _Desperate Housewives_ , but she thought she'd better hold her tongue, as Madame Xanadu poured out more stream-of-consciousness predictions.

"Batman's involved, his memories of the past erased. I see a magician, pulling a habit out of a rat. Man Drake dies. Heroes running around to no avail. Finally it all leads to …"

And then Madame Xanadu was silent.

"Where does it lead to?" asked Lana, who, even though she didn't have a clue what Madame Xanadu was talking about, had kind of got caught up in the excitement of it all.

"I don't know," replied Madame Xanadu wearily. "Only you hold the answers." And with that she bent down to the floor and picked up a green bag. "Here, child," she said, offering the bag to Lana, "use the spell runes to find out where things will lead."

With a slight trepidation Lana placed her hand in the bag and pulled out some flat squares with letters inscribed on them.

She placed the letters on the table - J, L, O and R.

"Well, that doesn't make any sense," said Chloe who, with her Scrabble prowess, couldn't be argued with.

"Do you need more letters?" asked Madame Xanadu.

Lana nodded, placing her hand back in the green bag. "Wait, there are no more."

Madame Xanadu shrugged. "That's the future. Never fully spelled out."

Rose suddenly saw what the letters meant and leant forward over the table, rearranging them.

JOR L


	15. History Trip

"Now is the time for you to leave," announced The Phantom Stranger, although the room's filling with mist kind of gave the game away.

"Well thanks, Madame Xanadu, you've been invaluable," said Chloe with her trademark sarcasm.

"It's been interesting," added Lana, a bit more tactfully.

"Bye," said Rose. "Give my regards to those other Tylers."

"Nice meeting you, MX," said Jimmy, just as the mists descended over him.

"So where next?" asked Chloe, unable to see anything.

"The Doctor is returning," replied The Phantom Stranger as the mists cleared to reveal the Tardis oscillating into view. Also standing there, on his own, was General Zod.

"Where are the others?" Lana asked him.

"Ursa should be back soon," replied the General, "although I'm not sure the same can be said for Lex Luthor."

As if on cue, and much to General Zod's chagrin, he suddenly spotted Ursa down the street, marching towards them, with Lex Luthor strolling casually behind her. Non's failing to kill someone he could handle, but he'd expected so much more of Ursa. Still, looking on the bright side, it meant that he'd have the pleasure of killing him.

As Ursa and Lex reached them, and the Tardis finally finished its materialization, The Phantom Stranger thought it time to say his farewells.

"The Phantom Stranger must be gone now," he declared as mist swirled around him, and then, turning his attention to Zod, Ursa and Lex he added "Nice outfits. Still you can't go wrong with black."

"Hey, don't be a stra-" started Chloe, but by that time he was gone.

The Tardis door opened and The Doctor stood there, smiling, beckoning them in. "Looks like we're taking a small detour. Smallville, 1961. Clark wants to examine his family tree."

* * *

As the Tardis rolled through the corridors of reality and time, Clark, Chloe, Lana, Rose and Jimmy were trying out the numerous outfits contained in what was best described as the Tardis' dressing room. Meanwhile, Zod, Ursa and Lex (or The Black Pack as Chloe had started calling them) insisted that their fashion was timeless and had instead decided to huddle in a far away corner of the Tardis in an evil brainstorming session.

Clark suddenly appeared from behind a mountain of clothes wearing the most garish patchwork coat anybody had ever seen. "What do you think?"

"We're going to 1961," explained Chloe, "they're not ready for psychedelia yet."

"Yeah," agreed Lana, "there's lots of red but no blue." She knew Clark's color preferences enough to know that these words would make him see sense. Of course any idiot could see that it was the absence of pink that made it totally unwearable.

"Guess you're right," admitted Clark. "Looks like I'll have to go for the boring jeans and t-shirt look."

"Maybe I can do something with your hair," offered Lana.

* * *

Finally, the Tardis landed just outside 1961 Smallville and, as his numerous passengers gathered together, The Doctor thought it was time for the obvious lecture.

"Okay, I realize that for three of you here today this is your past that you'll be looking around. Now, be careful. Very careful. At the risk of understating the seriousness of the situation here, I'd just like to point out that time's a delicate mechanism and any little thing you do could totally destroy your future. Now, go out and have fun and please on no account become your own grandparents. I hate paradoxes."

"Wait a minute," observed Lex. "This is the past of four of us, not three."

"Yes, quite right, Lex," replied The Doctor, opening the door for the others. "But you're not going."

"What harm could I possibly cause?" asked Lex innocently.

"No harm, but with your knowledge of Smallville's traffic accidents I could see you investing in all the local auto repair companies."

Lex was hurt that his hero was questioning his honor. "You never were my favorite Doctor," he snarled before stomping off into the bowels of the Tardis. How could The Doctor misjudge him so? Why would he even think of investing in auto repair companies. Lead-lined boxes - that was the real growth market in this town.

* * *

Clark looked around anxiously. Now he had the chance to meet his father he was suddenly nervous, having second thoughts. Of course, whilst he would get to meet his father, it would take a lot longer than Clark had anticipated for, as Clark was about to learn, the more things change the more they stay the same.

* * *

Lana Lang looked at Clark. If he could find his ancestors maybe she could too. And then she remembered her great-aunt Louise, and she remembered Madame Xanadu's words. That a crisis was coming and it would start with a housewife's death. Of course, now that she was here, maybe she could make a difference, change Louise's destiny. Suddenly the image of a Tarot card sprung into her mind.

* * *

Jimmy Olsen was a bit peeved that his quest had been delayed. Still, after all his travels he could do with a rest. Small uneventful 1961 Smallville - what quieter place could there be?

* * *

Chloe Sullivan was stuck in the past. This was like Heaven for her. The past - a really accurate, comprehensive news archive for her to rummage though. A shame that she felt so sleepy, but once she'd found a place to stay and got some rest then who knew what secrets she might uncover.

* * *

Rose Tyler was bored. As much as she liked Clark, she didn't want to be stuck here in Smallville with him for too long. She wanted adventure, not small town America. She wanted killing, ugly aliens, not a drop dead gorgeous one.

Of course, if she'd looked around she would have seen a pair of aliens with killing on their minds, but their target wasn't Rose. No, Zod and Ursa weren't looking at Rose, but at the pretty pink-clad girl next to her.

General Zod was going to kill Lana Lang, and this time there wouldn't be any mistakes.


	16. Variations

Lex had soon gotten bored of wandering around the Tardis. Apart from a locked sturdy door with a sign saying _PLEASE KEEP OUT!_ there had been little of immediate interest, and so he'd deemed it prudent to return to The Doctor. Partly because, despite his feelings, he knew that The Doctor would be far more preferable as a friend than a foe, and partly because, with the Tardis' size, he ran the risk of becoming hopelessly lost.

And so Lex found himself back in the Tardis' control room while The Doctor brought him up to date on all that had gone before. While much of it Lex had already heard from Ursa, the parts about Clark's parentage were new to him and of particular interest.

"Have you read any time travel stories?" asked Lex, thinking about what The Doctor had told him.

"I try not to," replied The Doctor. "I invariably end up picking holes in the plots."

"It's just that I was thinking about Clark. He'd previously heard his father talking with Zod's voice, so when he suddenly had visions of someone who looked like Clark Kent and talked like Clark Kent visiting the past Smallville, I'm surprised that he didn't jump to the obvious conclusion…"

The Doctor looked at Lex with interest. "Which is?"

"Jor-El isn't Jor-El. He's Clark visiting the past - with your help of course."

The Doctor smiled. "But that wouldn't make sense. Clark wouldn't visit the past the first time around the time loop because he wouldn't know he'd meet Jor-El there. The cycle must start somewhere."

"Although we might have ended up visiting Smallville in 1961 anyway, somewhere on our journey back to stop this Cat Grant woman," theorized Lex. "That could have started the cycle. This could be the second iteration of time we're living through, one where Clark Kent remembers those events."

"That's what I thought," admitted The Doctor. "But Jimmy assured me that the wedding in Metropolis was the first time he'd encountered this reality. Therefore there's no reason we'd have visited here again."

While Lex frowned, his theory blown apart, his thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging on the Tardis' door.

"Hope it's not a salesman," said The Doctor, walking to the door. At the door stood an out-of -breath Jimmy Olsen.

"This place … I've been here before," he gasped.

The Doctor looked sternly at him. "You're sure? But you said …"

"I'm sorry, Doc. All these Smallvilles look alike, but I thought this one was different. There was no Clark Kent and Lana was called Louise and …"

"It's okay, Jimmy," said The Doctor. "You go and bring the others back here and I'll try and work out the best course of action."

"So, looks like I was right," said Lex.

"Not necessarily," said The Doctor. "Although I'm reasonably sure this isn't the first iteration of these events, Jor-El could still turn out to be the real Jor-El, although now we've brought Zod back to the past he might end up taking Jor-El's place, thus explaining the voice discrepancy."

"So you're saying that you're not sure if we did or didn't come back here originally?"

The Doctor nodded.

Lex continued speaking his thoughts out loud. "In which case everything may be hunky dory, or Clark may end up meeting his future self and introduce enough paradoxes to destroy time itself."

"Don't be so melodramatic. Time's not going to be destroyed. It can take anything we throw at it, and still survive. After all, time's resilient -"

"I hear it's a great healer," chipped in Lex.

"Indeed," replied The Doctor. "Time will protect itself, even if it means erasing us."

* * *

An hour later, Jimmy Olsen entered the caves to see Clark sitting there.

"Hi, CK. Chloe said you might be here."

Clark looked up at Jimmy. "I'm waiting for my father."

"Well, The Doctor wants to see us all back at the Tardis," explained Jimmy. "I've already found Rose and Chloe, but I still need Ursa, Zod and Lana. I was wondering if maybe you could help."

Clark sighed and then got to his feet. "Alright, but when The Doctor's said whatever it is he has to say I'm coming right back here."

"Than-" started Jimmy, and then he found himself zooming down a road, towards the Tardis, being carried by Clark.

"Thanks for the lift," he said, as Clark dropped him off at the Tardis' door, but it wasn't fast enough as Clark was already heading back towards Smallville to find the others.

* * *

Ursa stood by the side of Crater Lake, looking up into the sky, thinking about Krypton. Suddenly she heard the sound of someone skidding to a halt behind her.

"Ursa, we need to return to the Tardis," explained Clark.

"Is there a rush?" she asked, her back still to Clark.

"The Doctor wants us," he replied.

"No rush then," said Ursa. She paused for a moment and then continued. "I'm glad we're alone, Clark."

"But we've got to get back."

Ursa ignored Clark's comment. "I saw the way you were looking at me, Clark, back in the Tardis."

"But I wasn't," protested Clark.

"Of course you weren't, Clark," said Ursa playfully. "I suppose you were just admiring my badges."

"That's right," lied Clark, not wanting to let her know that Zod sounded just like his father.

"I bet you're admiring my S now," she said, referring to the latest badge she was now wearing on her back, and then she turned around, walked over to Clark, and took his blushing chin in her hands. "Well, it's obvious you're in something of a hurry so you better give me a ride."

* * *

Moments later, nearly everyone was gathered in the Tardis, apart from General Zod and Lana. Clark sped out of the Tardis, soared towards Smallville, and soon his eyes and ears were combing it for any traces of them. For a second he thought he saw Lana, but then realized it was her great-aunt Louise. As seconds of searching turned to minutes, turned to an hour, Clark realized that neither of them was in Smallville, and so he headed back out of Smallville towards the Tardis, looking for any trace of them.

Suddenly he heard Chloe's scream coming from the Tardis, and so he raced there only to find a battered and bruised General Zod standing in the Tardis, holding the inert body of Lana Lang in his arms. Clark couldn't hear her heart beating.

Clark suddenly felt numb inside, felt guilty that tears weren't flowing down his cheeks, and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and then he heard his voice asking "How?"

"Ultra Woman," replied Zod.


	17. Grave Concerns

"Ultra Woman?" gasped Clark. "But it can't be." He sank to the ground. "That's who we were going to stop, but I persuaded The Doctor to bring us here instead."

"It's not your fault, Clark," said a still-stunned Chloe, walking over and putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Of course it's my fault," yelled back Clark, his hurt-filled face turning towards her as he brushed her hand away. Chloe Sullivan flinched as Clark continued. "This is all my fault. If I'd just let us continue we might have got to Cat Grant in time, prevented her becoming Ultra Woman, prevented her killing Lana."

Chloe fought back her tears and tried to stay calm. It looked like she'd have to be strong for both of them. "You couldn't have done anything Clark. It was destiny. The future Chloe told me that something tragic had happened to Lana."

"I know," shot back Clark. "I overheard you."

Chloe looked puzzled. "But how? Where were you?"

"I had a decent hiding place," replied Clark sarcastically. "Anyway, that's how I knew something tragic had happened to Lana, and that's why I came back to Smallville in 1961, hoping that I could change the past, and avert that future, but I didn't - I caused that future."

"It's all me, me, me with you, isn't it?" interrupted Lex. "I guess you and Lana were soul mates in that respect."

Clark turned his head towards Lex, his eyes glowing red, as Lex continued. "But you didn't fail, Clark. You _did_ change the future."

Lex looked at Clark and Chloe, both of them waiting for him to continue and then, after a suitably dramatic pause, he did so. "I fear that you and Chloe misconstrued that future Chloe's words. The tragedy that prevented Lana Lang being at the wedding that day was simply that her plane was delayed. And now, thanks to Chloe Sullivan's gift for exaggeration, you've actually killed Lana Lang, erasing her from that future entirely."

"I told you that you weren't responsible," said Chloe to a shaking Clark. "It was both of us."

"I'm sure Ultra Woman deserves some of the credit," observed Ursa, who was finding all of this fuss over one dead human highly comical.

"So what do we do next?" asked Jimmy.

"We do what we should have done all along," said Clark, drying his eyes. "We stop Cat Grant becoming Ultra Woman."

Lex laughed. "We can't. Nobody can stop Ultra Woman."

The Doctor disagreed. "Lex, I realize that Ultra Woman's intrusion into this reality makes it seem pre-ordained that we fail to stop her, but we can't give up hope. Oh, and General Zod, you can put Lana down now."

As General Zod gently rested Lana Lang down on the floor, and, having done that, dropped unconscious beside her, Lex continued. "I realize that the future isn't a certainty, Doctor - Chloe and Clark have demonstrated that admirably - but what I do know is that Ultra Woman cannot be stopped."

Rose was suspicious of Lex. "Why are you telling us this now, Lex, at a time when our morale can't sink any lower?"

"Because, my dear Rose, while my previous talks with Ursa and The Doctor had revealed that we were out to stop a lady named Cat Grant from stealing Superman's superpowers, they'd completely failed to mention to me that our nemesis would become known as Ultra Woman."

"So what difference does that make?" asked The Doctor.

"I can understand the others not knowing the significance of that name, Doctor, but you … well, I thought you'd be well-read. In my time, Doctor, Ultra Woman is infamous - she was the mystery villainess who turned up from out of nowhere one month and proceeded to kill the greatest hero the world had ever known."

"She killed Superman?" asked Chloe.

"No," replied Lex. "Warrior Angel."

* * *

"So, where are we going now, Doctor," asked Rose, as the Tardis began its journey.

"Back to the Metropolis we last left," explained The Doctor, "so we can continue following Jimmy's trail."

"But I was here in 1961 Smallville," said Jimmy, slightly confused. "Can't we just start from here?"

"No, we can't risk it. If this is the second iteration of our journey then we have to follow our previous path as closely as possible. We can't risk any more detours or shortcuts."

"What about Lana?" asked Rose.

"She's dead," explained The Doctor. "Nothing we can do about it."

"But shouldn't we take her back? Surely she deserves a funeral?"

"We haven't got time."

"You've got a Tardis," said Rose despairingly. "You can make time!"

"And how do we explain her death to the authorities? Even the years on the gravestone would confuse people."

"Well, couldn't we do something here for her?"

"Well, I've put her on ice," explained The Doctor, and then saw Rose's exasperated face. "Oh, you mean something like a memorial service, just like the one we didn't have for Non. How do you think that would make Zod and Ursa feel?"

"But surely …"

"Okay, Rose, I'll see what I can arrange. No point doing anything now though. Chloe's finally catching up on her sleep, Zod's resting from his beating, Ursa's looking after him, Lex is wandering around being enigmatic and shiny, and Clark …"

They looked over at Clark, sat huddled on the ground, using his super-intelligence to go over and over the numerous ways in which he could have prevented Lana from dying, and, as each possibility occurred, saying it at a speed that made his words impossible to follow, not to mention high-pitched liked some demented cartoon character.

"… Clark will take some time," concluded The Doctor.

* * *

General Zod opened his eyes to see Ursa perched on the end of his bed.

"Is it safe to talk?" he whispered.

"Yes, we're in the Tardis' medical bay," replied Ursa. "There's no way Clark will be able to hear us from here. Besides, he's got other things on his mind right now."

"Did they believe me?"

"Every word," said Ursa. "The broken bones and bruises were a nice touch, although I wished you'd have asked me to help."

"Lana did this," he groaned.

"And you killed her," added Ursa with a smile on her face.

"No, this was after I killed her," replied Zod, before slipping once again into unconsciousness.


	18. Return To Smallville

Chloe Sullivan was awoken by a loud banging sound. Fortunately she'd fallen asleep wearing her clothes, so within seconds she was able to start roaming the Tardis' corridors looking for somebody to unleash all of her pent-up anger on. Finally she found the source of the noise - Lex Luthor, standing there next to a smashed-in door, a sledgehammer by his side..

"What do you think you're doing?" she shouted, grabbing hold of Lex's jacket and wincing slightly from the pain in her hand, which was still bruised from Clark brushing it away earlier.

"The sign said _PLEASE KEEP OUT!_ " replied Lex calmly, assuming that that would be explanation enough for anyone.

Chloe shook her head in disbelief. "I'm going back to bed, Lex, right now. If I hear one more sound from you it will be your last. Capiche?"

"But …" started Lex, pointing to another sturdy door beyond the door he'd just smashed in, a door with a sign containing the words _WE REALLY MEAN IT!_

Chloe Sullivan used her good hand to pull Lex's head towards her and talked to him as slowly as she could. "I'm going back to bed! I don't want to be disturbed! Now if you'll just let me …"

"Rest in peace?" offered Lex.

Chloe Sullivan fell silent, pushed Lex's head away, turned from him and marched back towards her bed, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.

"Nice way with words, Lex," said The Doctor, suddenly appearing with Rose by his side. They'd also gone to investigate the banging and had caught the tail end of Lex and Chloe's conversation.

"Do you know what's behind these doors?" was Lex's response.

"Of course I do, Lex, but you shouldn't know. Trust me, Lex, you'll never forgive yourself if you find out."

"Very well, Doctor. If you say that this knowledge is forbidden, then that's good enough for me."

"We need to talk, Lex," interrupted Rose. "About Lana's death."

"Well actually I'm still in denial, taking out my subconscious anger on doors, but go ahead."

"It was General Zod who killed her, wasn't it?" said Rose accusingly.

"How could you think that?" asked Lex.

"Well first there was Non who died near Chloe," said The Doctor. "We suspect he was following her."

"Oh, Ursa told me about that. Eaten by a dinosaur. That must have been awful. It's a good job the dinosaurs were wiped out."

The Doctor glowered at Lex.

"Oh, me and my big mouth," replied Lex. "Adric died then as well, didn't he?"

"Adric?" asked a confused Rose.

"One of his companions," explained Lex. "You'll be surprised how many he gets through."

"Anyway," said The Doctor, trying to get back to the subject, "when you and Ursa returned to the Tardis from that other Metropolis we couldn't help notice that you seemed a bit the worse for wear."

"I walked into a door," explained Lex. "Anyway even if General Zod did kill Lana Lang, what do you expect me to do about it? I'm all out of medals."

This time it was Rose's turn to glower at Lex, while The Doctor continued calmly. "I'd talk to General Zod myself but military types tend to ignore me, so I'm leaving it all up to you, Lex. You're in charge of him from now on, Mister President. If any of your Black Pack takes one step out of line then I'm abandoning you all on the worst planet I can imagine."

"Well, if you could make that planet Krypton a few years before it exploded maybe it would explain Clark's father having Zod's voice," said Lex, although the way he said it made it impossible to tell whether he was joking or not.

"The Tardis visit Krypton," laughed The Doctor. "Over my dead bodies."

That could be arranged, thought Lex. Admittedly it would make him feel guilty, after all he'd hate violating continuity, but, yes, that could be arranged.

* * *

Meanwhile Jimmy Olsen stood alone in the Tardis' console room. Once they'd landed at their latest destination Rose had, as usual, asked him where they were now. The second he'd replied Smallville and that previously he'd met Lana Lang there, they'd felt a draught and looked to see Clark Kent gone and the Tardis door open. Jimmy was pretty sure that Clark was in for a shock.

* * *

General Zod woke up again, aided by Ursa's slaps to his face.

"What do you mean? Lana beat you up after you killed her?" she demanded.

"There were two Lanas," he explained.

"Two Lanas? So you killed this second Lana as well?"

General Zod looked at Ursa sheepishly. "By the time I recovered consciousness she'd gone. Still it doesn't matter, Ursa, we've cut down their numbers. There are now just six of them left to go."

"So who's next?" pondered Ursa. "We need The Doctor. We need Clark. We may even need Lex. After Lana's death, Clark's too fragile to risk killing Chloe, and killing Rose might anger The Doctor. That leaves just that one puny human. Leave him to me, it'll stop me from getting bored."

General Zod snored in agreement.

"Not the last person I'll put to sleep today," said Ursa, to nobody in particular, as she wandered off to find Jimmy Olsen.

* * *

This wasn't the Smallville Clark remembered. It wasn't even the year Clark remembered - 1983 - Lana wouldn't even have been born yet. And judging by the newspaper of a passerby, Virgil Swann was Superman in this reality.

Still he was glad to be out of the Tardis, alone with his thoughts, his thoughts that were flying by so fast that the outside world seemed to move at a fraction of a snail's pace. As he sat on the sidewalk using his memory to replay once more every moment he'd ever had with Lana, he suddenly noticed a familiar face across the road. It was a young Martha Kent. Boy, was she going to get a surprise when she found out who he was.

* * *

Jimmy Olsen first heard the sound of stiletto heels approaching, followed shortly thereafter by the sight of Ursa striding into the console room.

"Alone together at last," she said, looking him up and down. "Terrible about all these deaths isn't it, Non and Lana. They say bad things come in threes, a bit like Phantom Zone villains."

Nervously Jimmy Olsen backed towards the wall.

"Oh, Jimmy, there's no need to worry. I know exactly what I'm doing," she said as she slowly made her way towards him. "I'll even let you pick which finger I break first."


	19. Negotiations and Love Songs

Chloe Sullivan lay in bed, trying in vain to get to sleep, when she suddenly heard the sound of Jimmy Olsen's screams. Leaping out of bed, she started running through the Tardis' labyrinthine corridors towards the console room. Within under a minute she'd reached her destination only to witness Ursa standing over Jimmy Olsen, who was on his knees, with one hand resting on the floor, while his other hand was held tightly aloft by Ursa, who was twisting his arm. On the floor lay an unconscious Rose Tyler and, next to Chloe, was The Doctor, looking helplessly on.

"So, Doctor," said Ursa, completely ignoring Chloe's entrance. "Those are my conditions." Jimmy Olsen cried out in pain as Ursa pulled back on one of his fingers. "Please don't make me count to ten."

At which point Lex Luthor entered the scene. "What's going on?" he demanded of The Doctor.

"We walked in on your friend Ursa," he replied. "She was going to kill Jimmy but we interrupted her."

"I'm still going to kill Jimmy," Ursa reminded him. "Unless you give me control of the Tardis."

"How do we know you won't kill him anyway?" asked Lex.

"You don't," replied Ursa with a smile.

* * *

Clark hadn't been sure how to introduce himself to his mother-to-be, so instead he'd just followed her at a safe distance through the streets of Smallville, and now into a Smallville High School different than the one he remembered, and into the gym that had various tables set out. As his mother went to lift a heavy box, Clark suddenly saw an opportunity to talk to her.

"Can I help you with that?" he asked.

"Oh, thanks, I'd appreciate it," she said, turning towards him with a smile.

He took the box off her, and looked at her, younger than he'd ever known her.

The woman looked at the boy, who couldn't take his eyes off her. She was amazed that she'd never noticed him before in a town as small as Smallville. "Are you new around here?" she asked.

"Just here for the day," replied Clark. "Where do you want this box putting down?"

She motioned to another table. "Nice of you to help me out. We've got a class reunion tonight and there's so much to do."

"Well, I've got plenty of time on my hands," admitted Clark.

"Thanks, you're a life-saver," she said smiling the smile he knew so well. "If you could help put up some of these, that would be great." She pointed to some pictures in the corner.

Clark smiled the first smile he'd smiled since Lana's death. It was great meeting his mother and helping her out. As he started to take the cover off the first picture he recognized the face immediately.

"Oh, wait a minute," she said. "Where are my manners? Here I am giving you orders and I haven't even introduced myself yet."

"Let me guess," said Clark, with a smile. "You must be Martha Kent."

"No …" she began.

Clark banged his forehead with the back of his palm. How stupid could he be? She'd obviously not married Jonathan yet and was still Martha Clark. "I'm sorry, I meant Clark."

She looked at him in confusion. "No, I'm not Clark Kent … that's Clark Kent!" She pointed towards the half-covered picture that he'd assumed was Dr. Virgil Swann. "I'm Lana Lang," she added, "and you are?"

"I guess I must be Virgil Swann," replied a confused Clark.

* * *

"You're not going to kill Jimmy," Chloe Sullivan explained to Ursa matter-of-factly.

"Surely you're not going to stop me?" laughed Ursa. "Although feel free to try, just like Rose did."

"How long is it since you last slept, Ursa? A long time I bet. Me, on the other hand, I don't think I'll be sleeping again for a long time."

"So?" asked Ursa, becoming bored of Chloe's nonsensical meanderings.

"So," replied Chloe. "If you kill Jimmy now, then I'll kill you when you next go to sleep."

"What? And kill my unborn baby as well?" asked Ursa in disbelief.

"I'd kill it first just to show you I meant business."

Ursa smiled. "Surely this is all academic. After all, I could always kill you after Jimmy, or throw you off the Tardis."

"Yes, you could, but I know that I survive this. I've met myself in the future. Destiny's already been changed by the death of Lana. How much more damage do you think it can take before it collapses in on itself?"

"But why do you even care if Jimmy dies? He means nothing to you. He's not even from your reality," argued Ursa.

"I heard Lex and The Doctor speaking in the corridor. A theory about you and your friends trying to kill the rest of us. Now so far I've got no evidence one way or the other, but the moment you kill Jimmy then that theory starts to make sense, and I start to think that you and Zod were behind Lana's death and Lana Lang was my friend."

"So, you've still not got the guts," laughed Ursa.

"I'll kill you because I have to," replied Chloe. "If we think you've killed Lana then so will Clark. Now, I'm sure we've all figured out Clark Kent will become Superman one day. Well, on that other world we visited I did some reading and I know just how important Clark Kent's new identity will become. Sure all the other superheroes wear silly costumes and think everything can be solved by fighting, but Superman's different. He gives mankind hope, he shows us that reality can transcend our dreams. And that's why I'll have to kill you Ursa, because I can't risk Clark doing it. Clark Kent can't become a murderer."

"You're bluffing," laughed Ursa. "I know you're bluffing."

"You think I'm all talk," said Chloe, striding up to Ursa. Chloe smiled as she grabbed hold of Jimmy Olsen's hand. "You're all talk," Chloe explained as she snapped Jimmy Olsen's little finger. "Whereas me … me, I'll do anything for a story."

Ursa released her grip on Jimmy Olsen. "Hey, I was only having some fun. I wasn't really going to hurt him." She then stomped her way out of the console room. "Humans have no sense of humor."

"Doctor, are you a doctor?" asked Jimmy, in shock, as he held his broken finger.

While The Doctor administered to Jimmy's finger, Rose Tyler started to regain consciousness. "What happened?"

"It's over, Rose," said The Doctor.

"No, it isn't," said Chloe. "It's not over yet."

"You've done enough, Chloe," said Lex, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Leave Ursa to me."

* * *

"Wow, Virgil, you've been busy while I was gone," said Lana Lang, looking at the transformation that had occurred to the gym while she'd popped out for half an hour.

"It was nothing," replied Clark. "Helped me keep my mind off things."

"Want to tell me about it?" Lana asked, looking through the records she'd brought in the day before.

"Trust me, it's better if I don't," said Clark as he also looked at the records. "Earth Angel, I remember that one."

"Surely you're not old enough," said Lana, who Clark had to keep telling himself was no longer his mother.

"It was in that movie Back To The Future," Clark explained.

"Never heard of it," said Lana, as she took the record from its sleeve.

"Trust me, your kid will love it," said Clark.

"I don't think Ricky's heard of it either," said Lana, as she started the record playing. "So, Virgil, do you want to dance?"

"That would be nice," he replied, "but I think I better be leaving."

"Okay, Virgil, nice meeting you ," she said. "And try not to feel too sorry for yourself. That'll get you nowhere … Oh, listen to me. I sound like your mother."

Clark smiled and got to say the words that he'd wished he'd got to say to his Lana. "Goodbye, Lana. I'll miss you."


	20. Sinful Thoughts

"What's happening?"

Chloe turned her head around towards the voice and saw that Clark had suddenly materialized behind her. Recently it seemed that he didn't even care who knew about his super powers.

"Nothing, Clark, just a little disagreement between Jimmy and Ursa."

"She broke his finger?" asked Clark, looking at Jimmy's hand, which The Doctor was now repairing with his sonic screwdriver.

"No, that was me," confessed Chloe, and then thought it best to change the subject. "Anyway, what's this reality like?"

Jimmy Olsen cringed, knowing that this probably wasn't the best question for Chloe to ask Clark.

"Well I met Lana but she looked an awful lot like … let's not go into it, okay. Maybe it's best if we just carry on with our journey."

"Good idea," said The Doctor, leaving Jimmy and moving towards the control console. "Time for our next bite of reality."

"Where are the others?" asked Clark, as the Tardis started its journey.

"Well, Zod's still laid up in bed," explained Rose. "As for Uncle Fester, he's gone off to take care of Morticia."

Clark shook his head and sighed. He'd left the Tardis for just a couple of hours and while he was away they'd gone and picked up the Addams family of all people. This day just got weirder and weirder.

"Okay, we've reached our destination," interrupted The Doctor as the Tardis finally finished its latest journey. "We'll have to stay here a few hours while I make repairs, so you may as well go out, take in the local sights, send your friends some postcards."

Clark suddenly disappeared from Chloe's sight. "He couldn't wait to leave," she said.

"Shouldn't you have told him the truth about Ursa?" asked Jimmy.

"No, if he finds out that Zod and Ursa might have killed Lana then he may turn into a weapon of mass destruction. Trust me, that's not going to happen."

"Thanks for breaking my finger anyway," responded Jimmy. "If you hadn't done that Ursa would have killed me."

"No, The Doctor would have saved you," Chloe reassured Jimmy.

"That's right," agreed Rose, joining in.

"Well, thanks, Chloe, anyway," said Jimmy. "I owe my life to you."

"Forget about it, Jimmy," said Chloe dismissively. "After all I could never let anything happen to you. There's a bond between us."

"There is?" said Jimmy hopefully. He knew about the feelings he'd started to develop for Chloe but he was convinced she only had eyes for Clark.

"Sure, we're both reporters," explained Chloe. "So, Jimmy, any good stories in this place?"

"Lots of stories, all depressing. The Black Pack should feel right at home here."

"Sounds like fun," said Chloe sarcastically.

"And most things are in monochrome," warned Jimmy Olsen, "so don't freak out when the color drains from you, and also you'll find yourself constantly narrating your own actions in some hard-boiled internal monologue - that takes some getting used to."

"You're making this up," laughed Chloe.

"Wish I was," said Jimmy.

* * *

__Her name was Lana. She was my reason for living, but now she was dead, on ice, and nothing could bring her back. That's why I'd come to this bar, to try and forget, but I'd never forget Lana. I look around, nearly everything black and white, including me. I look down at my jeans, bright blue, the same color as the Tardis when I sped away from it. Normally I wear red and blue, but these days I'm just blue. The red's gone out of my world and so has the pink. I look at the dancer on stage in the cowboy outfit. She's pretty but she's no Lana. As far as I'm concerned she may as well be invisible._ _

I drink another beer, my thirtieth, and I don't know how, maybe it's this reality, but I'm starting to get drunk. Getting harder to think, reaction times slowing down, coordination getting tricky - a bit like losing my powers. Still I keep drinking, hoping that I'll get to see some elephants, hoping that they'll be pink.

* * *

"Can I help you with your repairs?" Rose asked The Doctor as she sat down next to him on the floor.

"Go away," said The Doctor bluntly.

"Well there's no need to be rude," said an indignant Rose Tyler.

"I'm not being rude," explained The Doctor. "I'm being honest. The Tardis' problems are psychological not physical."

"Psychological? In what way?"

"The Tardis is sentient, and the Tardis is telepathic. It is also, at the moment, carrying far too many passengers with far too many emotional problems. Basically it just needs a rest. Otherwise I'm afraid of what it might do."

"What do you think it might do?" asked a concerned Rose.

"Remedy the situation," replied The Doctor. As Rose looked at him blankly, he elaborated. "The Tardis is telepathic. It alters our minds routinely to cope with language problems. What if it starts altering minds to deal with its own problems?"

"What if it already has?" asked Rose. "What if it's responsible for getting Zod and Ursa to kill Lana Lang?"

"Exactly," said The Doctor.

"I think I'll pop out for a while," said Rose, getting up and leaving the Tardis. She wasn't sure if she wanted to stay in it anymore, especially if it was turning into a serial killer.

* * *

__It's just like Jimmy said. We're both black and white and in my head I'm narrating this tale that no-one will ever read. We're in a bar, full of lowlifes, the jukebox only plays moody background music, and over there I can see Clark and his bright blue trousers. With his eyes he can see anything he wants to see, but he doesn't see me. I just blend in with the rest of the black and white. Still, if he could see me, he'd just be looking through me, wondering why I couldn't have died rather than Lana. So here I sit, trying to ignore the way Jimmy's looking at me, and wondering if any of this is real or if I've just gone mad. Still, it doesn't matter. Whatever my story is, it's depressing. Just like Jimmy said._ _

* * *

Lex had been trying to reason with Ursa, talk some sense into her, teach her the meaning of patience, when The Doctor had caught up with them and ordered them, along with a limping Zod, off the Tardis until he'd finished repairing it. At least that was what he told them. Lex half expected the blue Tardis to disappear the minute they left it for the black and white landscape outside. Fortunately, as the narrator inside his head insisted on reminding him, this had proved not to be the case. The only things to disappear were Zod and Ursa.

That was hours ago, and Lex had looked for them everywhere, including a seedy bar where a drunken Clark had insisted on polishing Lex's head. Finally, just when Lex had given up hope, he heard a loud bang and felt a burning in his chest. Slumping to the ground, he looked up to see Ursa standing over him, a smoking pistol in her hand, her black costume now stained white.

And then everything went black.


	21. Lex In Sin City

_I wake up, my head throbbing, my chest feeling like its burning, stuck in a car trunk, all tied up. As the car lurches into motion I get thrown around. For Ursa, driving a car's just like riding a bike - it's something she's never done before. Something tells me this is going to be a bumpy ride. My head smashes against metal._

_Everything goes black again._

* * *

The Doctor was now alone in his Tardis, everybody else evacuated. Well, nearly everybody - there were still some passengers only he knew about, safe behind a sturdy door, but he couldn't risk letting them out.

He sat down, clearing his mind. The Tardis would let him know what it wanted, when it was ready. It was just a matter of waiting.

* * *

_I walk around the rainswept crime-filled streets, keeping myself to myself, when I come across Kadie's Bar. The bouncer seems in no condition to stop me, so I walk right on in. Looking around I see familiar faces: Chloe, Jimmy and Clark. I wonder if Clark's the reason that the bouncer's lying groaning outside._

_I'm walking up to Chloe and Jimmy when a big hand grabs me. I turn around to see a big bruiser with a face even a mother would punch. He asks me if I know who killed Goldie. I tell him I've no idea and, after a pause, he lets me go. Poor guy, he must have really loved that dog._

_And then I turn to see Clark blocking my path. He looks drunk but I know he can't be. Can he?_

_"Your lips …" he says, a strange look on his face, "Rose, your lips …"_

_"What about them?" I ask, getting ready to make a quick exit._

_"Nothing," he says, stumbling away. "They're just red. I thought they were pink."_

* * *

_I hobble through the streets, an easy target … or so they think. I keep proving them wrong. All this violence and crime all around me. It sickens me. There's no greater goal in mind, no strategy behind it. It's violence for violence's sake. Still, it gives Ursa a chance to indulge in her more unacceptable hobbies. I had to leave her halfway through her first victim … I just couldn't bear to watch. Here I am, a General, I've seen countless atrocities of war, but the things she does are just something else entirely. Still, nobody's perfect._

* * *

_It's black, then there's bright lights, and pain, sharp things cutting me, and then it's all dark again, and then I feel a slap and I wake up tied to a chair. Ursa's standing there smiling. I don't know how long I've been out but I notice she's had the time to clean all that white gunk off her costume._

_"You hurt my feelings, Lex," she tells me._

_"So, you're going to kill me?" I ask, the taste of blood in my mouth._

_"You said I didn't have any patience," she continues, avoiding my question, which, knowing her, I've already guessed the answer to anyway._

_"Well, attempting to kill Jimmy Olsen in front of everybody wasn't the most covert of operations."_

_"I've got needs, just like everybody else," she explains. "And please, Lex, don't hurt my feelings again. You know that I'll just hurt you back."_

_"So, if you're going to kill me, kill me," I say._

_She laughs. "Lex, if I'd wanted to kill you, I'd have shot you more than once. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have taken you to that so-called doctor to have the bullet removed."_

_"I guess I should thank you then."_

_"Indeed you should," she replies in a pleasantly surprised tone that suggests Clark's not the only Kryptonian who just doesn't get sarcasm. "Actually, Lex, I like you, I like you a lot."_

_"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it."_

_Suddenly she pulls out a device from a concealed pocket in that black outfit she wears. It's a cube with a button on top. "Well, you do disappoint me at times. To tell you the truth, Lex, I like my men like I like my cars - black, shiny and responsive when I put my foot down."_

_"Two out of three ain't -" I start, and then she presses the button and suddenly there's so much pain in my chest that I'm wishing she'd just killed me. Looks like that doctor of hers did more than just take the bullet out._

_"I'm in control now, Lex," she explains. "I'm pushing the buttons. Please remember that in future."_

_And with that she walks off, leaving me there, still fastened to that chair._

_A shame really. I'd started to grow to like her. But now she'd made a fatal mistake - she'd made me angry._

* * *

_Everybody's totally black and white, apart from Clark with his blue jeans and Rose with her red lips. Here we all are, stuck in a bar, when we should be on our way to save Superman. Clark's got so drunk he's fallen asleep, though he keeps mumbling Lana's name. Chloe's feeling sorry for herself, still pining after Clark, still ignoring me. I tell her Clark's a jerk, but she just glares at me, telling me I'm supposed to be Superman's pal. And, if that wasn't bad enough, Rose has finally figured out where we are and, with the aid of four drinks too many, has launched into some bizarre acapella version of "We built Sin City on rock and roll" and looks genuinely surprised that none of us are joining in. The only thing that keeps me vaguely happy is that I know the next reality we're visiting is the next best place to home._

* * *

The Tardis had made its decision. The Doctor got up and left it, entering the black and white world outside. It was time to bring everybody back.

* * *

The heads in Kadie's bar all turned around as the door opened. "Hello, I'm The Doctor," said The Doctor, barely audible over the sound of jaws hitting grounds.

As the locals sat there stunned, Chloe, Rose and Jimmy struggled to carry Clark to the door.

"How come you're still in color?" asked Rose.

"I was never good at blending in," confessed The Doctor, helping the others to carry Clark.

Twenty minutes later they arrived back at the Tardis to find Zod and Ursa standing there.

"Back already?" asked The Doctor.

"Yes, I got bored eventually," confessed Ursa. "Things just aren't the same with white blood."

"Ignore Ursa," added Zod. "Always joking."

At which point a naked Lex Luthor came running up towards them (in the process answering a question that Chloe had never had the courage to ask him about his hair loss).

"So, Lex," purred Ursa, looking at his black and white body. "How did you manage to escape?"

"Some people came along," he muttered.

"And they rescued you?" she asked incredulously. "I guess the residents in Sin City aren't all bad."

"Well, they'd come to steal the chair," explained Lex, "but once they'd taken all my belongings they kind of lost interest in me."

"To tell you the truth," started The Doctor, "the less I hear about your exploits here the better. Unfortunately it looks like I'll get to hear it all anyway."

"Why's that?" asked Rose.

"The Tardis can't cope with all of these secrets and lies and pent-up emotions. The only way it'll continue to put up with you is if you're all totally honest."

Lex smiled. Total honesty might keep the Tardis happy, but it could tear the rest of them apart. Still, it didn't matter to Lex, for he'd already formulated a plan several realities ago and if that plan was to be successful, well, honesty wasn't even an option.


	22. Rock & Rule

"So, Doctor, when does this honesty begin?"

The Doctor looked at Chloe Sullivan, who was the only other person left in the console room.

"Guess it'll have to wait until morning, no, make that afternoon. That'll give people, and the Tardis, time to start getting over their hangovers."

"So how exactly do we know when it is the afternoon?" asked Chloe, who tended to lose all track of time while stuck in the Tardis.

"It's the afternoon when we feel like it being the afternoon," said The Doctor smiling. "That's one of the perks of time travel."

Chloe yawned. "So, Doctor, if you don't mind me asking, do you ever sleep?"

"Not since I was six hundred. Thing is, Chloe, you'll find you need less sleep as you get older."

"Well, I need some sleep now, Doctor, so I'll bid you goodnight."

"Night, Chloe, if you bump into Rose could you tell her to go to sleep too, or at least to stop singing."

* * *

Rose Tyler enjoyed being drunk in the Tardis. The rooms and the corridors were aligned in such a way that her singing voice was currently echoing throughout them all.

"Why you gotta play that song so loud?" she sang, bouncing up and down, when suddenly a fist came flying towards her face.

"Goodnight," said Ursa, as she walked away from Rose Tyler's now unconscious body and towards where Clark Kent was sleeping.

* * *

Chloe Sullivan was wandering the Tardis' corridors, towards her bedroom, when she heard Rose Tyler's singing come to a sudden stop. As she breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that she might now stand a chance of getting some sleep, Ursa suddenly strode into view.

"Well, Miss Sullivan, I believe I owe you some thanks."

"You do?" replied Chloe suspiciously.

"I'll explain later," said Ursa cryptically. "First I've got to go and check on Clark."

* * *

Lex had been left with nothing, not even the shirt on his back, but there was still something here for him on the Tardis, something he'd hidden here shortly after arriving. In the Tardis' dressing room he was dismayed to see that the patchwork coat was no longer where he'd left it. Who in their right mind could have chosen that to wear? Frantically he searched through the many clothes there and at last he found it. Slowly he looked in the bottom left-hand pocket and there, just where he'd left it, was the one thing they could never take away from him.

His memories.

* * *

"Wake up, Clark," said Ursa, when her hands started to hurt from slapping him. "I bet you'd have woken up for Lana."

At the mention of Lana's name, Clark's eyes opened. His vision was blurry. He was still drunk even though it wasn't even possible (well, not in his reality anyway). "Lana?"

Ursa paused for a while, wondering whether to play along, but no, she didn't need to resort to such trickery. Not anymore.

"It's me, Ursa. I thought it was about time we talked. I'm sure you'd like that."

"Talk?" replied a groggy Clark.

"Or we could just keep it physical if you preferred," suggested Ursa.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Clark, struggling to focus on Ursa.

"Oh, don't worry, Clark," she said, leaning over him. "I can see you're not in the best of shape, and you're probably fairly new at this, but trust me, I'll do all the driving. After all, I've been driving most of the night, the wind flowing through my hair, dazzling people with my headlights, my hand wrapped firmly around the gearshift lever …"

Clark was suddenly wide awake. He could see through Ursa's subtle allusions. It was time to slam on the brakes. "Stop! This is all wrong!"

"Don't you find me attractive, Clark?"

"But there's your boyfriend, Zod, and your unborn baby."

"You know about the baby?" Ursa said, surprise in her voice. "Who told you? Lex? Chloe?"

"I heard about it myself," replied Clark.

"Well, I guess that puts a bit of a damper on my seducing you," she said regretfully as she drew back her hand. "Sorry, Clark. No hard feelings I hope."

"Erm, no," said Clark, blushing.

"It's just in that world we were just in, I was nothing, just black and white, except for that red and yellow symbol on my back. I thought you'd be able to bring some color into my life, Clark."

"I'm sorry," said Clark, as she turned away from him, her head bowed and left the room.

After Ursa had left Clark's room, she made her way to Chloe's.

"Chloe, still awake I see."

"Can't sleep," explained Chloe. "So, have you come back to thank me again?"

"Yes, you stopped me acting impulsively. You made me think about things, obstacles … Clark."

"So, how was Clark? Still mumbling about Lana?"

"No, but he failed to fall for my many charms." Ursa smiled at Chloe. "You must know what that's like."

"Yeah, I'd never fall for your many charms either," said Chloe with a forced smile.

"Still, I got something off Lex earlier, after I shot him," she said, taking a box out.

"You shot Lex?" exclaimed Chloe.

"Oh, he'll forgive me, we're friends," said Ursa dismissively. "Anyway, there was something he had that I needed. Something that stood out in that black and white world." She opened the box. "Something green."

Chloe was silent.

"So, with this I can control Clark. Won't that be fun?"

"And what about me?" asked Chloe. "Have you come here to kill me?"

"What, and upset destiny? No, that would be tempting fate. And besides I want you to witness all the fun I'm going to have. Oh, and don't tell anybody else about this or I'll kill Clark, even if it'll cause a temporal paradox destroying time as we know it."

"You're bluffing," said Chloe.

"Try me," said Ursa, a large smile on her face. "Now, I'm going to get some sleep so if you feel like murdering me here's your chance. My guess is you're the one who was bluffing."

As Ursa left the room, Chloe sat in bed, wondering what to do. Surely she couldn't just kill Ursa in cold blood? As she heard Ursa's mocking laughter echoing through the corridors outside, Chloe Sullivan felt helpless. She wished that she could kill Ursa without a second thought, wished that she could just ignore her conscience. For the first time in her life she wished she was insane.


	23. Liar Liar

Now that all Lex's clothes had been stolen, he'd decided that he'd have to make do with the Tardis' dressing room and its distinct lack of designer wear. While it would have been a simple matter for him to come up with something suitably Luthorian, that was the last thing he needed if his plan was to succeed, and so he'd started trying out a seemingly endless succession of outfits. Now, posing in front of the mirror, he decided that he had the perfect look.

Turning his attention away from the mirror, he picked up the medallion he'd retrieved earlier and suddenly his mind was transported away, reliving his memories, paying special attention to one person, their body language, their mannerisms. For Lex Luthor knew that Clark Kent would never listen to him, but there was one person he'd have to listen to.

Suddenly Lex's thoughts were back in the Tardis. Putting the medallion away, he started to make his way to Chloe's room. She was the starting point in his plan but, unfortunately, when he got there, her room was empty.

* * *

Chloe hadn't been able to sleep, so she'd started wandering the Tardis' corridors when suddenly she'd heard some music she recognized coming from the console room. As she got there she found The Doctor huddled over an old record player and a tape deck, both of which were now being powered via cables coming from beneath the Tardis console.

"So, what do you think of the music?" asked The Doctor.

"Well, it's not a personal favorite," admitted Chloe.

"It's for a memorial service I'm putting together for Lana," explained The Doctor. "I've been out in Sin City getting these records - can you believe this reality doesn't have CDs yet?"

Chloe looked at The Doctor quizzically. " _I'm comin' up so you better get this party started_ \- do you really think that's appropriate?"

"Well, Clark kept mumbling about how Lana loved Pink," he replied defensively.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "What else have you got?"

"Well, they didn't have a lot of choice," started The Doctor. "I've got Britney's Toxic…" Chloe shook her head, so he continued "… and then there was this soundtrack."

He pressed the play button on the tape deck and suddenly Judy Garland's voice singing _Somewhere Over The Rainbow_ filled the console room.

Suddenly Chloe found her eyes filling with tears.

"Hate that one as well, huh?" groaned The Doctor, moving his finger towards the stop button.

Chloe grabbed hold of his hand. "No, Doctor, that's perfect."

The Doctor smiled his wide smile. "Great. Well, I'll leave you with it," he said, picking up a bag of groceries that he'd also bought in Sin City. "There's some things I've got to take care of elsewhere in the Tardis."

* * *

Lex had heard the music coming from the console room and had decided to investigate. As he headed towards there, stepping over the unconscious Rose Tyler blocking his path, he met The Doctor coming in the opposite direction brandishing a grocery bag.

"Nice outfit," said The Doctor as he brushed past Lex and knelt beside Rose to check that she was okay.

"Thanks," replied Lex, without meaning it (since The Doctor was, after Clark, the very last person anybody would ever ask for fashion advice). Turning his attention back to the console room, Lex continued on his journey, only to finally arrive there and find just the person he wanted to see.

"Chloe," he said with a forced hesitancy. "I need to talk."

"Just like you were going to talk to Ursa," sneered Chloe, not even bothering to look around at Lex.

"I tried," he admitted, "but all that got me was a bullet in my chest and this."

Chloe turned her attention away from the tape deck and towards Lex. She looked at him, resplendent in one of The Doctor's old outfits, pulling the shirt aside to reveal a scar on his chest. "What, she made you play cricket?" she said sarcastically.

"I'm talking about the scar," said Lex.

"Yeah, I saw it earlier when you were naked," admitted Chloe. "I just assumed that whoever stole that chair you mentioned also took some of your organs along with it."

"No, this was Ursa's doing," said Lex, looking away from Chloe. "She's put a device in there - all that she's got to do is press a button and I'll be writhing in agony. She thinks she can get me to do whatever she wants."

"So, that's why you're wearing that outfit?" asked Chloe.

"No, I just couldn't wear that black outfit anymore," said Lex. "Not around you," he added, diverting his gaze from Chloe once again.

"What are you talking about?" asked Chloe, sensing a mystery.

Lex took a step back. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I've said too much. Besides, you wouldn't believe me. It's too … too outlandish."

"Try me," said Chloe.

Lex looked at Chloe, tired after a long day, susceptible to whatever untruths he decided to weave.

"You've got to promise not to tell Clark," he said, reeling her in.

"Of course not," promised Chloe, "you can trust me."

"Of course I can," said Lex, for he knew that he could trust her to spread his lies - after all, that's what newspaper people were for.

"So, go on, Lex, spill the beans."

Lex hesitated. "You've probably noticed that I haven't bored you with any quotations since you first encountered me in the future Smallville."

"Well, no, that's true," admitted Chloe. "But so what?"

"I don't know how to say it …" began Lex. "I'm almost afraid to say anything. The last person I told was Ursa. That was why she tried to kill me in that other reality's Metropolis, the same reason she wants to control me now."

"Fascinating," said Chloe. "Now, could you just hurry up to the punch line."

"I've been living a lie, Chloe … for so many years. I'm not the Lex Luthor you think you know. It all changed … back in Smallville."

Lex fell silent, presumably lost in his memories. Actually, he was just waiting for the Wizard of Oz soundtrack to reach the part where The Scarecrow sang _If I Only Had A Brain_. As it did, Lex looked at Chloe, and inwardly reveled in the irony. It was time to tell Chloe one of the most audacious lies of all time.

"The Lex Luthor you knew wasn't me. That Lex Luthor wanted to live out his Warrior Angel fantasies … and he got his wish. You don't recognize me do you, Chloe? Not in this body."

He looked down at her, hoping his study of Clark's body language hadn't been in vain.

"Clark?" she said, her voice almost catching in her throat.

Lex smiled and nodded.


	24. The Unbelievable Truth

Chloe Sullivan looked at Lex skeptically. "But how can I trust you?"

"You can't," said Lex truthfully. "Don't worry about it, Chloe. It's best if you don't believe me. It's just that I've been so long in this body … I just had to tell somebody … tell you. I could never risk telling you back in my time, otherwise Lex would have heard with that super-hearing of mine, would have killed you." He started to walk away, his head slumped, waiting for Chloe to call him back. To his surprise she didn't. Still, some deceptions took time.

Suddenly he felt a searing pain and, clutching at his chest, fell to his knees. As he tried to ignore the pain he heard footsteps running towards him, and then heard Chloe Sullivan's voice. "Clark! Are you alright?"

Breathing hard, he turned his head towards her, struggling to focus. "Never felt better."

He loved it when a plan came together.

* * *

"You rang?" asked Lex, as he walked into Zod and Ursa's room. Zod was sleeping, while Ursa was sat up, a smile on her face.

"Just checking that it was still working," explained Ursa. "Besides, I couldn't sleep. I was hoping you could help."

"In what way?" asked Lex.

Ursa, leaned over to her black outfit beside the bed and pulled a piece of paper out of one of its many concealed pockets. "Here's a list."

Lex took the piece of paper from her and looked at it. It was a list of everybody on the Tardis, apart from Ursa. "And what precisely do you want me to do with this list?" he asked.

"Well, Lex, I just won't be able to rest easy until everybody on this list is dead. Unfortunately people, including you, don't seem happy when I take matters into my own hands, so I thought I'd delegate."

"You want me to kill all of these people?" asked Lex.

"You catch on fast," said Ursa. "One a day will suffice. I don't think that's too much to ask."

"And Zod's first?"

"Well, with his name he's always hated that he ended up last on lists," explained Ursa.

"But I thought you loved him. He's the father of your unborn child."

"Call it a lover's tiff," replied Ursa. "So are you going to kill everybody, or will I have to get that green rock out and persuade Clark to do it?"

Lex frowned. So Ursa had his lump of kryptonite - he'd just assumed that the thieves in Sin City had taken it. Lex started compiling his own mental list that consisted solely of the name Ursa. He looked again at the last name on Ursa's list. "I can't help noticing that my name comes last," observed Lex.

"Well, I really can't see how it would work if your name appeared any earlier," replied Ursa, not understanding Lex's problem.

"So, I end up killing myself?"

"Of course," replied Ursa. "You must have realized that your days were numbered the moment you met me. Although if you really don't want to kill yourself, I'm quite prepared to help out."

"Looks like I'm living on borrowed time then," said Lex, starting to leave the room.

"Night, Lex. Sweet dreams," said Ursa, as she rested her head back on her pillow. She looked over at Zod, taking up far too much of the bed. Still that wouldn't be a problem tomorrow night, although Ursa couldn't help wondering if her solution had been a tad extreme.

* * *

Lex walked back into the console room, his face pale.

"Clark, are you okay?" asked Chloe.

"Please, call me Lex," he requested. "Clark might be listening. And no, Chloe, I'm not okay."

"It's Ursa, isn't it? What does she want you to do?"

"I can't tell you," replied Lex.

"Know the feeling," said Chloe. "She came to visit me earlier but I can't tell anybody about it either." She suddenly noticed the music still playing in the background. "This is crazy, my life's turning into the Wizard Of Oz. Earlier I was in a world of black and white, and now I'm in a world of color, being threatened by a wicked witch in black."

"Maybe you can find the Emerald City?" suggested Lex.

"I don't need a city of emeralds," replied Chloe, "just one green rock."

Her mention of the green rock reminded Lex of Ursa, and also of something Chloe had once said to her. "Remember what you said to her yesterday?" asked Lex. "About killing her in her sleep?"

"Yeah," replied Chloe. "If I only had the nerve."

"I shouldn't tell you this," said Lex, "but I'm Clark. I've been on this Tardis before and I remember what happens."

"So what happens?"

"I can't tell you," said Lex. "If you really needed to know it your future self would have told you."

Chloe thought about her future self's words. There wasn't anything she said, but there was one thing she didn't say.

"I asked her about mental illness," said Chloe aloud. "She wouldn't say anything."

Lex was just going to tell her that she killed Ursa, but was quite content to wait patiently while Chloe leapt to the wrong conclusion. "I go insane, don't I? I go insane and kill Ursa."

"Can't say," replied Lex, turning his face away from her, hiding his smile.

"Please, Clark, tell me," she begged, turning Lex's now-distraught face back towards her. "Please be honest with me."

"I could never lie to you, Chloe," said Lex, a tear coming to his eye. "That's right. That's what happens. That's the reason that I'm trapped in Lex's body."

Chloe looked at Lex in confusion. "Lex did this to you because I killed Ursa."

Lex smiled at her. "No, I asked Lex to swap bodies. Sure my old body could do anything, but it couldn't do what I needed it to do most, couldn't do what Lex's many research laboratories finally managed to do. It couldn't cure you."

Chloe looked at Lex aghast. "You sacrificed all your powers for me?"

Lex nodded. "And the worst thing was that I could never tell you until now."

He took her in his arms and whispered into her ear. "But you were worth it."

And indeed, despite all his lies, Chloe Sullivan was worth it, for she was the first step in Lex's plan to destroy Clark Kent.


	25. Another Dimension

Clark Kent's head hurt worse than it had ever hurt before, and for some reason his super-hearing was even more acute than usual. Why did people have to breathe so loudly? And then he suddenly heard the telltale humming that indicated the Tardis was once again undertaking a journey and his headache went into overdrive.

Staggering into the console room, the humming of the Tardis still ringing in his ears, he was alarmed to see Lex and Chloe sleeping on the floor, Chloe wrapped in Lex's arms. Trying to ignore the sight, he turned his attention towards The Doctor.

"So which of the countless realities are we in today?" he asked, trying to ignore his first, and hopefully last, hangover.

The Doctor looked at him confused. "Countless realities?"

"I thought there were infinite realities," replied Clark.

"Yes, there are infinite realities, but countably infinite not uncountably infinite," explained The Doctor. "Some people even number them."

"So where are we?" asked an irritable Clark.

"It's Jimmy's world, but not the one where he's Jimmy. Anyway, he's gone out to have a look around. I promised him the rest of us would stay in here. The last thing he needs is that world's time messing about with, although if it hadn't been he wouldn't have been born in the first place."

"Thanks for clarifying everything," said Clark insincerely. "And there's no need to shout."

The Doctor looked confused, and then remembered Clark's super-hearing. "Sorry," he whispered back.

* * *

Jimmy Olsen walked through the Metropolis streets that he knew so well. Unfortunately it wasn't quite his Metropolis, and its Jimmy Olsen wasn't quite him. Also, Lois' apartment number was different, as he'd found out the first time when he'd tried to contact her, although Jimmy had no clue what obscure change Tempus must have done in the past to cause that.

Just like on his last visit, he wandered into the Daily Planet building, seeing the familiar faces (and the unfamiliar Jimmy Olsen), none of whom recognized him in the slightest, and also, just like last time, he exited the building, feeling emptiness and regret for the reality that fate had stolen from him.

"Don't look so glum, Jimmy," said a black-clad bearded figure suddenly appearing from out of nowhere.

"You know me?" asked Jimmy.

"Sure we met that Christmas," replied the figure. "Well, actually that was the other Jimmy."

Jimmy was incredulous. "Wait a minute. You know about me and the other Jimmy?"

"Yeah, but I'm fifth-dimensional so I cross all the realities. I'm surprised you haven't met me yet. Mxyzptlk's the name, but all my friends call me Mr."

"No, sorry, I've not seen you before."

"It might be because I look different there, not dashing like I do here. Sometimes I'm an old bald guy with a hat. Sometimes I put on a silly accent and try and blend in with the natives."

"No, sorry," replied Jimmy.

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway," replied Mr. Mxyptlk. "I wanted to talk to you about what's been happening to you recently. All these crazy dimensions you've been visiting , all this ridiculous confusion. I was afraid that you might think I was behind it all."

"No, honestly I didn't," explained Jimmy. "After all I've got no clue who you are. Now, I better be getting back to the others."

"Can I come with you? In the Tardis? Please, please, let me? I've never met my other dimensional selves before, just seen their shadows, overheard their voices, and I'm starved of intelligent conversation around here."

"No, I'm sorry. It's all getting ridiculously full now and I don't think The Doctor would put up with any more."

"But I'm a useful guy to have around," insisted Mr. Mxyzptlk, now on his knees. "I can do magic and tricks."

"Can you pull a habit out of a rat?" asked Jimmy, suddenly curious, remembering something Madame Xanadu had said earlier.

Mr. Mxyzptlk produced a rat out of thin air and then proceeded to pull a nun's habit out of the back of it.

Jimmy flinched at the rat's anguished sounds.

"Hey, that's nothing," explained Mr. Mxyzptlk. "You should have heard the noise he made when I pushed it in."

"Will you please, please go away," demanded Jimmy.

Mr. Mxyzptlk's bottom lip began trembling.

"Now!" added Jimmy.

And then Mr. Mxyzptlk's face broke into a smile. "Hey, wait, you don't know how to get rid of me, do you?"

"Clearly not," said Jimmy, shrugging his shoulders. "Care to enlighten me?"

"What, you've got to be kidding. There's no way I'm going to let you trick me into saying kltpzyxM -"

Jimmy looked at the empty space where Mr. Mxyzptlk had been pleading a second before and then, shaking his head, he returned back to the Tardis.

* * *

"You're just in time," said The Doctor as Jimmy entered the Tardis. "I've organized a memorial service for Lana Lang. Just stand over there with the others."

Jimmy headed over towards them. Clark, with his head bowed. Rose, with her bruised chin and wearing a pair of dark sunglasses to hide the excesses of the night before. Zod and Ursa who, for once, seemed to be dressed appropriately. On the other hand, Lex still had that stupid outfit on that Jimmy had seen him sleeping in earlier.

"Chloe's going to say some words," said The Doctor, as Chloe Sullivan wandered into the console room. She'd been away, in her room, listening to the tape The Doctor had bought the night before, while she practiced her speech over and over again. She couldn't afford to make a mistake - this was her best friend she was remembering. All the glib comments such as how she liked to be with Lana because it made her look smarter had been excised. Sure Lana had some faults, but today she'd come to praise Lana, not to bury her, and everything had to be perfect - for her, for Clark (both of him) and especially of all for Lana, wherever she was.

Chloe slipped the tape into the tape deck, and then, looking over at the others, she began her oration.

"Lana Lang was my friend," she began and then, with words more powerful than any she'd written before or would ever write again she expressed the wonder that was Lana Lang's life and the tragedy that was Lana Lang's death. By the end even Ursa and Zod were in tears, as was Chloe herself. But her words didn't matter - what mattered was Lana Lang herself, and, as Chloe pressed the Play button on the tape deck, she hoped that they'd all remember Lana Lang with the same affection that she did.

Time is measured in many ways - the dropping of grains of sand, the movement of a pendulum, the burning of a candle, but even the most precise of measuring devices couldn't accurately measure the infinitesimal amount of time that passed between Chloe realizing to her horror that she'd forgot to rewind the tape and the subsequent sound of _Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead_ echoing throughout the Tardis.


	26. The Princess And The Purpose

"And I was remembering you, remembering everything about you, and Chloe's words were perfect, capturing you as well as words could ever hope to, and then she played that song…" Clark paused, wiping the tears away. "Anyway, I had to get out of there. Fast. And so I came here. Don't know why I'm telling you these things, opening up to you when I never did while you were alive. Still can't believe you're dead. Did I tell you that I think I hear your voice at night? Somewhere, far in the distance."

Suddenly Clark's ears picked up a pair of familiar footsteps approaching. "It's Lex," he said, but the cryogenic chamber he was talking to didn't answer.

"I knew I'd find you here," said Lex, making his entrance.

"Come to gloat?" asked Clark, avoiding Lex's gaze.

"Gloat about what? Chloe's mistake? She's as upset about it as you are. If you'd stuck around for a moment longer you'd have known that."

"Was it a mistake? Chloe never liked Lana. Not really."

"Of course it was a mistake, Clark. You know it was. You're just using it as an excuse to see Lana again."

"I've not _seen_ Lana, Lex. Not since she died. I couldn't bare to look at her when Zod first brought her in, and now she's stuck in this cryogenic chamber, waiting until we can get her back to Smallville for a proper funeral."

"Can't you take a peek at her in there with your X-ray vision?"

"Even if I could bring myself to, The Doctor made me promise not to use it while I'm on the Tardis. If I accidentally looked at the heart of the Tardis anything could happen."

"I understand," replied Lex, thinking back to another death that he'd once seen, a death that hadn't happened yet.

"Anyway, if you don't mind, Lex, I'd like to be alone."

Lex looked down at Clark, sitting on the floor. "What, alone with Lana? Stuck here with your ice princess, as she sleeps her eternal sleep, as you keep hoping that one day you'll find a way to wake her up. Don't bother, Clark. It's the stuff of fairy tales. Trust me, there's no happy ever after."

Clark stared resolutely at the floor, trying to ignore Lex's piercing gaze. "So, what if I want to be alone with Lana? Is that such a crime?"

"Lana, Lana, Lana," chanted Lex. "It's always the L word with you, isn't it? I pity you, Clark. You've got X-ray vision, heat vision, and, some day soon, even microscopic and telescopic vision, but you're still blind. Lana's dead, she doesn't need you anymore … it's Chloe who needs you now. She's the best friend you'll ever have … don't lose her."

"What would you know about friendship?" asked Clark coldly, turning to Lex. This time Lex averted his gaze.

"I know that it's not worth losing," he said, with a trace of remorse in his voice. "Don't make the same mistakes I made," he added, and then walked away leaving Clark to think about his words.

* * *

"Okay, maybe this memorial service wasn't such a good idea," conceded Rose Tyler, as The Doctor activated the Tardis' console to take them to the next reality.

"Don't blame yourself," replied The Doctor.

"No, blame me," interrupted Chloe, who was sat on the floor, her head in her hands, feeling sorry for herself.

"Well, to be honest I enjoyed it immensely," said Ursa, kneeling down beside Chloe. "Who would have thought that Lana and I had so much in common? All my boyfriends ended up dead or hospitalized too, and my father was killed when a piece of rock smashed into him - although in his case it was repeatedly. And that song at the end - so sad and yet so uplifting."

"Thanks, I'm so glad that you appreciated it," replied Choe, regaining her sarcasm. "It means so much to me."

"Besides, she can have a proper funeral when all this is over," added Ursa optimistically. "Just Lana's family and friends - that'll be a lot easier to organize, less people for a start."

Chloe was about to rip Ursa's throat out or something similarly understated when the Tardis' sudden silence indicated that it had come to a halt.

"So, where are we now?" asked General Zod.

"Back where Lana died," replied Jimmy. "Smallville. 1961."

* * *

While it had been only seconds since the Tardis had started to materialize outside Smallville, far away, on the other side of Smallville, there was another Tardis, from their past, that had materialized thirty minutes earlier.

Now the Lana Lang from that Tardis was walking the streets of Smallville. She had a purpose here today: she was going to cheat destiny, and so she found herself standing at the door of her great-aunt's house.

Taking a deep breath she nervously knocked at the door. There was no answer. She didn't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved and then, just as she was about to try knocking again, the door suddenly opened, and she found herself staring into a stranger's face that resembled her own in every detail (although she didn't think it was quite as beautiful).

Louise McCallum stared in shock. She recognized the face at the door immediately but it took her seconds to realize that it was hers (although she didn't think it was quite as beautiful). "Do I know you?" she finally asked, dumbfounded. "With your beauty we must be related."

"That's right," replied Lana, and then, deciding that honesty was the best policy, added "I'm your great-niece from the future, but you won't know me because I haven't been born yet and you're dead. Can I come in?"

"Sure," replied a shocked Louise, displaying a false smile, and then, once Lana had entered the house, and her words had finally sunk in, she added "I'm dead?"

"Don't worry," said Lana reassuringly. "I'm here to stop it."

"You're from the future? Did Jimmy send you?" asked Louise.

"You know Jimmy?" asked Lana, filled with a sudden curiosity.

"Very well," said Louise with a mischievous smile, and then walked over to a cabinet at the side of the room. "He was here in Smallville for a few weeks, only left a day or so ago. Anyway, we got to talking and … well …" She produced a small box from the cabinet and then, from within that box, she produced a letter. "He wrote me this. Such a way with words. Guess he really did work at a newspaper like he said."

"Jimmy Olsen wrote this?" asked Lana in disbelief as she read the passionate words, words she'd read once before, and noticed his initial J at the bottom.

"He did more than just write," laughed Louise. "Actions speak louder than words, if you get my drift."

Lana forced a smile. She didn't have time to hear about Louise's love life (and even if she had she wouldn't want to) - she just had to make sure that a bullet didn't put an end to her great-aunt.

"Let's swap places," exclaimed Lana, suddenly inspired. "You can take my place on the Tardis traveling through time and space and realities while I make sure that you don't die."

"Well, I've always thought I was destined for something more than Smallville," admitted Louise. "Sure, I'll give it a try."

"Great," said Lana. "Oh, wait a minute, our hair's different."

"Don't worry," said Louise. "I'm a big movie fan. I've got lots of wigs upstairs. Trust me, by the time I've finished nobody will be able to tell us apart. So, tell me, are there any cute guys on this Tardis of yours?"

"Well, nobody's as perfect as we are," confided Lana. "There's Clark who's cute in a dumb puppy dog kind of way, Lex who's bald and smoldering, The Doctor who'd be perfectly acceptable if some of his ears were amputated, Jimmy who you already know way too well, and General Zod, who's great for an old guy with a beard. Actually he pretends he's a real bad guy, puts on an English accent and everything, and on the way here I thought for a second he was following me, but I guess that's some of my old Smallville being-stalked-by-meteor-freaks paranoia creeping in. To tell the truth, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Sounds enchanting," said Louise. "I can't wait. But are you sure about this?"

"I've never been surer about anything," said Lana with all the conviction she could manage. "I've had enough of my family die on me to last me a lifetime. Trust me, I'm not going to let the same thing happen to you."


	27. Journey To The Center Of The Earth

"1961?" said Chloe, suddenly distracted from feeling sorry for herself. "Couldn't we just go and save Lana before she dies."

"That's not possible," said The Doctor.

Elsewhere in the Tardis, Clark's super-hearing had picked up their conversation. A second later he was in the console room asking, "Why? Just because of some possible temporal paradox?" And then, before The Doctor could answer, he added, "I'm going out to rescue her anyway."

"Don't, Clark," shouted The Doctor as Clark opened the Tardis door, started to set his foot on the ground outside, and promptly found his foot going through it. Suddenly he was falling through the ground outside, and, as he struggled to comprehend what was happening, he heard The Doctor's voice shouting after him "The Tardis - it hasn't fully materialized."

Clark reacted instantly, turning around, and reaching out with his hand to grab the Tardis, but he missed it by millimeters and suddenly everything went dark as his head went below the ground and only his X-ray vision, which was somehow managing to work with the insubstantial reality around him, enabled him to look back up at the worried faces of his friends looking down at him. No, not at him. At the ground. A ground he was falling further and further into.

* * *

"Surely there's something we can do to save him?" asked Chloe.

"Well, unless he suddenly learns to fly," started The Doctor, "we'll need a really, really long rope."

"How long?" asked Rose.

"Around four thousand miles," answered The Doctor. "The local gravity seems to be affecting him, so he should stop once he reaches the center."

"I'm guessing you don't have a rope that long," said Jimmy.

"That's a reasonable assumption," replied The Doctor.

* * *

Meanwhile Zod and Ursa, uncaring of Clark's plight, were returning to their quarters, when they ran into Lex.

"Good news, Lex," said Ursa, as they passed him. "Looks like that list of yours is one name shorter."

"Who?" asked Lex, confused. Surely Chloe's mistake at the memorial service hadn't been sufficient excuse for Ursa to kill her.

"Clark," she replied. "He stupidly rushed out into a world we weren't even phased into.

"But, but I was just talking to him a moment ago," said Lex, and then he realized what had happened. "Curse that boy and his super-speed. It wasn't meant to be like this."

And then Lex found himself running towards the console room, his eyes suddenly taking in Rose, Jimmy, Chloe and The Doctor crowded at the door looking down. Chloe's hands were over her mouth and tears were dripping down from her eyes, falling through the ground outside.

"How long's he been down there?" asked Lex calmly.

"Maybe a minute," said The Doctor.

"Have you got any flight rings, jet packs, teleportation devices?"

"There's bound to be some lying around somewhere, but we'd need to look."

"No time," said Lex, dragging Chloe away from the door. He turned her face towards his. "Thanks for believing in me," he told her, and then ran out of the door.

Jimmy, The Doctor and Rose watched in disbelief as Lex leapt into the air, before diving into the ground below.

"Did he just do what I thought he did?" asked Jimmy.

"He must have an idea," replied Rose.

"Looked like suicide to me," admitted The Doctor.

Chloe Sullivan dragged herself back to the door.

"No, Doctor, the exact opposite. Suicide's when you take your own life. He was trying to save his."

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Smallville, inside the home of Dexter and Louise McCallum, Lana and her great-aunt were beginning their incredible transformation into each other.

Meanwhile, outside on the streets, General Zod wandered around. He'd lost sight of Lana Lang, but if he just stayed patient she was bound to turn up sooner or later. And so, ignoring the jeers of the local populace who failed to appreciate his snazzy black outfit, he roamed the streets of Smallville, ever watchful.

* * *

As Lex plummeted towards the Earth's core, unable to see, he wondered if it might have been better to come up with a plan first. Admittedly, he was far more able to cope in this situation than that plaid-clad farm boy, and his resourcefulness was legendary, and inspiration would no doubt strike at any second, but still it was possible that he might have been slightly rash here.

First of all, there was the small matter of oxygen, or the lack of it. Fortunately he'd filled his lungs before diving down, and his early asthma had taught him to control his breathing. Still, he wouldn't have long to attempt to communicate with Clark.

"Clark Kent," he said, not knowing whether even Clark's super-hearing would be able to hear him over this distance (on the plus side the intangible Earth wouldn't block the sound waves). "Don't panic! You're largely invulnerable. As long as you don't use up all of your oxygen, you'll live. Now just relax and listen to what I say."

And then Lex started using various persuasion techniques to convince Clark that now was the time to fly. And then, suddenly, Lex could no longer breathe and, as he struggled to carry on talking, his mind flashed back to his childhood, gasping for breath, searching for his inhaler, and then he was older, underwater, a phone floating beside him, and suddenly strong arms were picking him up, and then he felt lips pressed against his, and oxygen being blown into his lungs.

He opened his eyes, but still couldn't see anything.

"Don't speak," said Clark, holding him securely, as they soared ever shallower towards the ground above.

And then there was a pain in his chest and things went black again and the next thing Lex knew he was on the floor of the Tardis, the others gathered around him.

"That was a stupid thing to do," said Clark, "you could have gotten yourself killed. You're lucky I heard you when I was flying back up. You were delirious - trying to tell me to fly."

Lex smiled. "But you did fly."

"Well, yeah. Once I'd thrown myself at the ground and missed, I guess it came to me no problem. Besides, down there, there were no heights to be afraid of."

"I guess not," said Lex. "Thanks for saving me."

Lex wondered if his words had actually subconsciously triggered off Clark's flying ability, or whether it was just Clark's being thrown in at the deep end, so to speak, that had forced him to fly. It didn't really matter anyway - regardless of whether he'd saved Clark or Clark had saved him, he'd still need to save Clark hundreds of more times to make them even.

All that mattered now was that Clark was alive, that he hadn't perished in some clumsy accident. Lex would never allow that to happen for, if Clark Kent was to die, Lex was adamant that he was going to be the one responsible for it.


	28. Honesty

An hour or so had passed since Clark's rescue of Lex, and Chloe was now alone with Lex.

"So, are you feeling better now?" she asked.

"Much better," he admitted.

"So, I hate to sound suspicious, Lex," Chloe said, not caring if she sounded the least bit suspicious, "but why did you dive in after him?"

"He's my past self," explained Lex. "If he'd have died then I'd have ceased to exist."

"But if you were him then wouldn't you have remembered that you didn't die?"

Lex smiled (his usual tactic when being asked questions by reporters that he didn't want to answer). "Maybe I saved him and he doesn't realize it yet. Flying didn't come easy to me you know - not like that other Superman we came across."

"But if that was the case," continued Chloe, starting to rile Lex, though he didn't let it show, "then you only exist in the first place because you saved your past self from dying. That just doesn't make sense."

"Okay, Chloe, it's time to be honest. You really want to know why I leapt after him?"

Chloe nodded, wanting so much to believe that Lex was telling the truth and wanting so much not to have been made a fool of.

"I don't know," replied Lex. "Maybe I thought it was the only way, outside of telling Clark the truth, that I could get him to trust me. Maybe it's just because I remember Lex doing the same when I was Clark, as I plummeted through the ground, seeing you up there with my X-ray vision, your tears following me down - they were the only things I could feel as I flew up."

"So, you know whether Clark gets to trust you eventually."

Lex nodded. "He never does. But that's me - always hoping I can change my past."

"There's nothing you need to change, Clark," Chloe said, inching towards Lex.

Lex retreated. "There's still things about me you don't know."

"What? You mean that thing in your chest?"

"Oh, that. Ursa put it in there. She uses it to control me. Now that I've told you, she'll no doubt kill me."

"Hey, look on the bright side. It'll stop you dying of lead poisoning."

"Oh, yes. Now I remember. I saw it as Clark," he lied, as he figured out what Chloe's words meant . "It's made of lead so I can't see into it with my X-ray vision. Can't deactivate it." Lex had to hand it to Ursa. She'd obviously put some thought into things. "But there's still something else you don't know," replied Lex, reasonably sure that Chloe had yet to find out Clark's big secret.

"Well, I'll find out everything about you soon," she said, looking at her watch. "It's the Tardis' enforced honesty period in five minutes."

"That's something to look forward to," said Lex. "Trust me, I remember it."

"Actually, I'm dreading it," confessed Chloe. "I'm an onlooker, a reporter. I talk about other people, not about me. Never been big on small talk and as for revealing my feelings - well, I'm like the rest of Smallville in that respect - I love keeping my secrets."

"What feelings are these?" asked Lex, wondering if there was anything his investigators hadn't told him about Chloe over the years.

"Unrequited love means never having to say your feelings," replied Chloe.

"Unrequited love?" asked Lex, with mock innocence. "Let me guess. Jimmy?"

"How could I have ever doubted you were Clark?" asked Chloe, taking Lex's arm and leading him towards the others. "Oh, wait, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm being insensitive."

Lex didn't know what she was talking about, so looked at her silently, unemotionally, waiting for her to continue.

"You're just putting on a brave face, aren't you? I can't imagine what this honesty thing must have been like for you the first time through. It must have seemed interminable."

Lex nodded, still not sure what Lana was talking about. Obviously she knew something he didn't and he wasn't going to jeopardize his subterfuge by attempting to second guess her.

Chloe, always happiest while talking, continued. "Just imagine, being stuck in there, pouring out your feelings, knowing that Lana's out there dying, and the Tardis will only finish materializing in Smallville when it's happy with us."

"You're right, Chloe. It was agony. Still is. You know me so well."

* * *

Chloe and Lex were the last to make it to the console room. A lack of chairs meant that everybody was sat around on the floor in what approximated a circle. Chloe and Lex sat down between Rose and Clark. Clark, the real Clark, took hold lightly of Chloe's hand. "I'm sorry," he said to her, before releasing it. Chloe looked at Clark with surprise - she'd been convinced that he was never going to forgive her for her memorial service faux pas.

Suddenly The Doctor stood up. "All I, and the Tardis, ask of you now is complete honesty. The Tardis feels that such a thing is imperative if it's to continue to cater for your variant psyches. Now, who wants to go first?"

"I'll be last," moaned Zod to Ursa. "I'm always last."

"You always come first with me," whispered back Ursa, remembering the list she'd given Lex.

"I'll go first," said Clark, standing up. "Maybe it will take my mind off Lana, although I don't think anything will ever take my mind off Lana."

Ursa, sat on the other side of Clark from Chloe, was about to laugh, thinking that Clark was joking about that worthless pink human, but then relented when she looked at the others and realized that his melodramatic sentence was intended to be taken seriously.

"First of all, I've got to be completely honest. My name's Clark Kent and I'm a Kryptonian."

Chloe's eyes widened. How stupid could Clark Kent be? "No, Clark. That was the Superman from that other reality that I read about," she said slowly (well, slowly for Chloe, which was quickly for most Smallville residents). "That Superman was Kryptonian. He even had your same aversion to meteor rocks. But it was the meteor rocks that gave you your powers. Looks like they messed with your mind as well."

"No, Chloe. I'm an alien," Clark said, looking down straight into Chloe's eyes.

"No, it can't be," she said, turning to Lex. "Tell him that's not true."

Lex looked back at Chloe. "It's true," was all he said.

Suddenly Chloe became angry. "You're from the planet Krypton? Those rocks - they're from Krypton?"

Clark nodded, immeasurable sadness in his eyes. "They came at the same time as me. I was in a spaceship."

"And that was just a coincidence? All those rocks followed your spaceship at the exact same speed and trajectory."

Clark nodded.

"What were they? Fuel for your ship, or just a distraction? Is that why they've been mutating my friends? Trying to make them like you?"

"I don't know. I just don't know," mumbled Clark, all the guilt that he thought he'd gotten ridden of over the years suddenly returning.

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness," howled Chloe hysterically, "and it's all because of you."

"I'm sorry," said Clark, visibly broken, tears in his eyes.

Lex looked at Chloe and tried to avoid smiling. This honesty period had been going on for less than five minutes and it was already the most fun he'd had in ages. It might even have taken Clark's mind off Lana.

* * *

Lana Lang was drinking a glass of orange juice, when she looked out of the window and saw Louise McCallum, now conversant in all things Lana Lang, walking on the street behind the house, heading to the Tardis. Louise turned towards Lana, giving her a wave, and then General Zod leapt out from behind a tree and grabbed Louise. Lana dropped her glass of orange juice, leaving it to fall and smash against the linoleum floor while she ran to the back door. By the time she was outside, she saw General Zod talking, but she couldn't hear what he saying. She couldn't see Louise, but as she ran closer, she saw her there, on her knees in front of Zod, tears running down her cheeks.

Finally she got close enough to Zod to hear his words: "Goodbye, Lana."

And then there was the sickening sound of a neck being broken.

As he held Louise in front of him, like a rag doll, he suddenly noticed Lana's footsteps running towards him and turned to face her.

"You? You're dead?" he said, unable to believe his eyes.

Lana stood there, tears streaking her mascara, her body shaking. "No, Zod. You! You're dead!"


	29. The Never Ending Story

Far from the Tardis, on the streets of Smallville, General Zod didn't know what, or who, hit him, as Lana Lang started to make him pay for killing her great-aunt.

* * *

The Doctor could see that this enforced bout of honesty wasn't turning out to be a complete success.

"Let's stop for a moment there, shall we?" he announced, as he jumped up from his sitting position. "Since Clark's been brave enough to volunteer, maybe we should just listen to everything he has to say and give ourselves time to think about it before we wade in with our constructive comments."

Chloe, who'd barely started on her constructive comments, glowered at The Doctor and then reluctantly nodded and fell into silence.

Clark began to regain his composure slightly. "The meteors... I know they came with my ship, but they're not my fault. Just part of my alien baggage." He looked down towards Chloe, hoping she'd understand, but she was refusing to look back, instead staring straight ahead. It gave Clark a small shred of satisfaction to note that she also seemed to be purposefully ignoring Lex as well.

Suddenly his super-hearing picked up Ursa's voice. He looked down to see her sitting there, looking up at him, with an eyebrow raised, her hand covering her mouth to hide the fact that she was whispering. "That's the difference between Chloe and me, Kal. She's all vex and silence, while I'm …"

Clark tried to ignore Ursa's whispering, and continued talking.

"So, now you know I'm an alien and you've no doubt noticed my superpowers. I guess I lost interest in hiding them after … well, I'll get to that later. Anyway, I guess there's only one place to start … with Lana Lang."

And so Clark launched into a lengthy monologue about his personal history with Lana Lang that, aside from Ursa's whispers, was uninterrupted. First he told of how he'd first met Lana, of how he was besotted with her despite her necklace, of how he'd spied on her from his loft through his telescope. While this creeped Chloe out, Ursa, still whispering, just wanted to know whether "using my fingers to adjust my telescope" was some kind of euphemism.

Clark continued on, undaunted, giving the highlights of his on-again off-again relationship with Lana, while the others struggled to remain to seem interested. Finally, to a huge collective sigh of relief, Clark finished the Lana segment and moved on to how he'd accidentally got transported through time and space with Jimmy Olsen, how he'd ended up in a future Smallville overrun by meteor freaks, with all of his friends and family dead, and how there was nobody to blame but himself.

Chloe looked at Clark, and the sadness in his eyes as he recounted the events, and she started to regret her earlier outburst as she realized that she'd accused Clark of the same thing that he must have accused himself of, countless times over, throughout recent years. Still, she'd had her reasons.

And then Clark moved on to Batman, and Chloe suddenly remembered Madame Xanadu's mention of him, and then Clark uttered the name Ra's Al Ghul, which triggered Chloe's memory of a tale Lionel Luthor had once told her, and Chloe desperately wanted to say something but, biting her lip, she opted for silence. It would wait until Clark finished his story, although, at the rate he was going, she wondered if that day would ever arrive.

And then Clark moved on to his slaying of the dinosaur that had just eaten Non, and about how he'd met Zod and Ursa for the first time and about how his super-hearing had overheard them whispering about making him kneel before them, and, finally, about how he'd recognized Zod's voice instantly - it was the voice of his father Jor-El. Suddenly Ursa's incessant background whispering stopped, as she turned her attention from Clark to Zod. She looked at Zod, as his mind took in what Clark had just said, and he looked back at Ursa and then at Clark and back to Ursa. Surely in Clark's reality, in the reality he was now in, he couldn't be the boy's father?

And then Clark went off on a tangent, talking about another time he'd seen his father, through pictures transmitted to him through an alien medallion. He'd caught glimpses of the past - the past they were now in - and his father hadn't talked like Zod or looked like Zod - he'd been just like Clark. Naturally, this being Clark telling the story, he had to ruminate on the fact that his father had lost his Lana Lang look-alike to death back in this 1961, just as he himself had had to endure the endless heartbreak of the real Lana Lang's death here. Bitterly he noted that he'd just failed to prevent her death here a second time because he was stuck in the Tardis, pouring out his heart in the Tardis' heartless forced detention. It was a bit like The Breakfast Club, he mused. A brain, an athlete, a basketcase and a criminal, but, sadly, no princess.

Chloe made a mental note to ask Clark who exactly he was calling a basketcase, as he continued to tell them how he had gone with The Doctor to visit a future Smallville, and how The Doctor had told him how Rose had tried to save her father's life. It was then Clark realized that, with the aid of the Tardis, he could go back and save his own father's life by warning him about Krypton's destruction. For that matter he might end up saving Krypton itself and, along with Krypton, Lana Lang's parents. He could prevent the meteors hitting Smallville, save the teenagers descending into meteor madness, save Lex's hair.

Suddenly the hope in Clark's voice died, as he dropped back into maudlin-mode. "It all seemed so easy. It was at that point I lost interest in who'd see my powers because it wouldn't matter any longer. I'd be wiping out my future and building a better one. I thought I'd make Lana happy … but … but …"

Clark fell silent for a moment, and then simply added "I think you know the rest."

When the subsequent silence had made it clear that Clark - stood there, looking down at the ground, lost in his thoughts - had said all he was going to say, The Doctor intervened. "Thanks, Clark. I know it wasn't easy. Any questions or comments, anyone?"

To nobody's surprise, Chloe was the first to speak. "So, do you really look like that, or are you using some alien shape-shifting power to blend in?"

"This is how I look," admitted Clark. "Although the only other Kryptonian I've ever seen, from my reality that is, also looked just like me. For all I know, they all look just like me."

Wow, that's a planet worth saving, thought Chloe, but her outer demeanor stayed calm as she went through the questions and comments she'd been building up. "Batman - I've heard that name before. We met this woman called Madame Xanadu, back in that reality where we saw Superman, and Ursa bought that Superman badge, and this Xanadu woman made lots of predictions."

"That's right," said Jimmy. "She said she saw some sort of crisis of identity looming."

"That's Lex," explained Chloe, who figured that with all this enforced honesty she'd have to reveal Lex's secret sooner or later. "He's really Clark."

"Chloe!" yelled Lex, the same way that Clark had yelled her name countless times before on the numerous occasions when she'd just ignored him and gone ahead and done something sensible instead. Although, this time, deep inside, Lex was happy, for Chloe had done just what he'd wanted her to do.

While Clark looked at Lex in confusion, Ursa was laughing loudly. "Oh, that's priceless. Lex is just trying to confuse you, Clark."

"No, it's Ursa who's trying to confuse you," shot back Chloe. "Lex and Clark swapped minds in the future."

Suddenly Clark's super-ability to add two and two together and make five made itself known, as things started to fall into place. That's why Clark had hardly recognized his future self when he saw himself being married. He thought that it had been the glasses, but no, his older self had been more confident, more sure of himself, just like Lex. He thought that the wink his future self had given him was friendly, but now he realized that it had been a mocking wink, as Clark's inner Lex made him marry Lois of all people, rather than Lana. "It all makes sense," he said after nanoseconds of thinking. "Lex, you're me."

Lex forced himself to smile and get teary eyed as, wordlessly, he nodded.

Ursa rolled her eyes in disbelief. "It's just one of Lex's plans to get him to trust you."

"Lex could never have come up with a plan this stupid," said Chloe, defending Lex.

"Whatever," said Ursa, who'd got bored with the whole discussion anyway.

"So, what else did this Madame Xanadu say?" asked The Doctor, genuinely interested.

"She said it would start, as much as anything could be said to start, with the death of a housewife," replied Jimmy, glad that his training by Perry White meant that he was able to recall every detail of what the lady had said.

"That would be Lana," said Lex, teary-eyed.

"But she wasn't a housewife, and your identity crisis happened before then."

"Well, I'm from the future and she died here in 1961, so that makes it first. And Lana was a housewife, back in my time. She married my best friend Pete Ross."

Lex looked up at Clark, who was suddenly realizing that not only had he killed the love of his life, he'd also killed his best friend's wife. If Lex hadn't been enjoying the spectacle so much, he could almost have felt sorry for Clark.

"What else did she say?" asked The Doctor, his curiosity piqued.

"There's an accident. Somebody starts a fire," said Jimmy, trying to ignore the anguished look on Clark's face.

Everybody's faces looked blank, except for Clark's that was still lost in its own inner turmoil, and Lex and Chloe's that were looking at Clark with mock sympathy and sympathy respectively.

"Okay, let's skip that one for the moment," said Jimmy. "She said Lois Lane's involved somewhere, but that goes without saying, and then she reached the bit about Batman. She said his memories of the past were erased."

Jimmy's words suddenly distracted Clark from his inner whining. "That's right. The second time I saw him... all his memories of our first meeting in that twisted Smallville reality were gone. Did she say anything else about him?"

"No, just something about a magician pulling a habit out of a rat. That's already happened, but trust me - you don't want to know the details. Then stuff about someone called Mandrake dying, heroes running around to no avail, and everything leading to …"

"Leading to where?" asked Clark, wanting to know where destiny was leading him.

"Jor-El," said Rose.

As Clark's, Zod's and Ursa's chins all simultaneously hit the ground, Chloe decided to move on to her next comment. No, she'd save that one for last. There was a more important question she had to ask. "So, Clark, I realize that the princess was Lana, but who exactly were the brain, athlete, basketcase and criminal you were referring to.

Lex couldn't believe she'd asked that - it was so obvious. Clearly he was the brain …

"Well, obviously, The Doctor's the brain," interrupted Rose, as The Doctor waved his head from side to side with a big grin on his face. "Clark must be the athlete, Ursa's a shoo-in for basketcase, which leaves either Lex or Zod as the criminal."

"No, you've got it all wrong," said Clark, shaking his head, "except for the athlete part."

Lex smiled, knowing just what Clark was about to say. Unfortunately what Clark then said wasn't it.

"They're all me," said Clark.

"You?" said Chloe, failing to understand his answer on every level possible. "I can understand the athlete bit, and admittedly, since Lana died, you have been a bit of a basketcase, but the others - how can you possibly perceive yourself as a brain or a criminal?"

"Of course, I'm a brain, Chloe. My parents don't calling me a genius for nothing."

"What? You pay them to do it?" asked Ursa.

"No," explained Chloe. "They're being sarcastic. Clark doesn't get sarcasm. But, Clark, how are you a criminal?"

"Haven't you been listening, Chloe?" replied Clark. "It was my idea to meddle with time that got Lana killed. I killed Lana Lang."

"You couldn't have foreseen that, Clark," said The Doctor, interrupting.

"I know," answered Clark. "But that doesn't make her any less dead."

* * *

Meanwhile, outside in Smallville, Lana Lang was busy, in the kitchen of her great-aunt's house, cleaning the linoleum floor. It had been covered in orange juice, shards of glass, and the traces of General Zod's blood that had been left on her shoes as she'd stumbled back in, but now it was spotless. Still, Lana kept on cleaning it.


	30. School for Scoundrels

"One last thing, Clark," said Chloe Sullivan. "You mentioned a Ra's Al Ghul…"

"Yes," replied Clark, "but I'm afraid that his name's all that I know about him."

"It's not even his real name," said Chloe. "Ra's Al Ghul's true name's been lost to the sands of time."

"How do you know about him?" asked Lex, clearly surprised at Chloe's knowledge of the future.

"It was your father … sorry, Lex's father … who mentioned him once, back in those days when I was working for him. He said I could be his acolyte, and then laughed and told me this unbelievable story about his younger years."

"Why don't you go and tell us that story, Chloe?" chipped in Ursa. "This floor is so comfy and I'm dying to hear something totally irrelevant rather than getting on with things."

"You better had, Chloe," said The Doctor, to audible groans from Rose and Jimmy. "You never know how important that story might turn out to be in the long run."

"I can't see it being the least bit important," admitted Chloe, "but here goes…"

And with that, Chloe Sullivan started telling the story, just as it had once been told to her. It was the tale of a young boy called Lionel, growing up in the career cul-de-sac of Suicide Slum, who one day heard, from his friend Morgan Edge, the tale of a mysterious man of great power who lived far, far away. That man was called Ra's Al Ghul - which translated as The Demon's Head - and Morgan told young Lionel that Ra's was searching for an acolyte.

Ready to face the challenge, Lionel gathered his meager belongings and started his trek over mountains and across rivers, through intense heat and bitter cold, in search of the man. Finally, many days after most others would have given up, Lionel finally collapsed, immersed in a fever, despairing of ever reaching his goal. When he regained consciousness seconds, minutes, hours or days later (Lionel had no way of knowing) his blurry vision could make out a figure staring down at him.

"Lionel Luthor?" the figure asked.

Lionel didn't recognize either the figure or the voice and, in a hoarse whisper that struggled to escape from his dry throat, he asked "How do you know me?"

"I know many things," replied the figure, finally coming into focus, stroking his beard. "I know the past. I know the future. I know you play a part in it."

"Ra's?" asked Lionel.

"You can call me Al."

* * *

Meanwhile, away from Chloe's story and outside the Tardis, in 1961 Smallville, Lana Lang left her great-aunt's house to check on General Zod's condition. At first she was planning to just leave him there to die, but, unlike Zod, she wasn't a murderer and her conscience had soon gotten the better of her. With trepidation she'd approached the scene of her attack on Zod, only to discover, with a mixture of surprise and relief, that Zod and her great-aunt were no longer there. All that were left were Zod's bloodstains on the ground. Zod clearly had far more stamina than she'd credited him with she realized as she noticed the set of scarlet footprints leading away from where she'd left him lying.

Still, she had more important things than Zod to think about now. Thanks to her, and despite The Doctor's warnings, her great-aunt was now dead before her time. The repercussions on history could be vast - Lana's mind went to her parents and the great things they could have done, and the wonderful life she would have led, if not for that homicidal meteor. Of course Lana knew that Louise's life would have been fairly short anyway, but that was still no excuse for what Lana had done. She had to make amends - for Louise and for history. She had to take Louise's place - it would just be for a few days … until she was shot dead.

Slowly she walked back to the house, walked up the stairs, and started to undress, ready to enter the shower and wash the final traces of Zod's blood off herself. Suddenly she stopped when a feeling came over her that she was being watched, but then she realized it was just paranoia and continued disrobing - after all, nobody could be spying on her - not unless they could see through walls.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the Tardis, Chloe's story continued, telling how Lionel was nursed back to health by Ra's' medical staff and how, one day, with his strength fully restored, he looked in the mirror to see that during his trek and subsequent illness he'd managed to grow a beard. Preferring a clean-shaven look, Lionel covered his beard in shaving foam, raised a razor to it, and then suddenly found a sword blade at his throat.

"Cut that beard and I'll cut your throat," advised Ra's.

"That's a bit extreme," remarked Lionel, slightly perturbed by the older man's interruption .

"For those who seek world domination," explained Ra's, "facial hair is of the utmost importance, along with an appreciation of military strategy and a knowledge of quotations. These things I can teach you, Lionel, if you're willing to learn."

"Very well, old man," replied Lionel, flinging the razor away.

And so Ra's withdrew his sword from Lionel's throat, and instead used it to motion him towards a door.

"Where are we going?" asked Lionel, as he washed the shaving foam off his face.

"Don't ask questions," said Ra's. "It reveals a lack of knowledge. Whenever possible, between quotations, always remain silent, for talk is cheap and silence is golden."

Lionel was tempted to ask Ra's if he'd read that in a fortune cookie, but then remembered that Ra's was carrying a sword and decided to give the silence option a try (since he didn't know any quotations). As Lionel finished drying his face with a towel, Ra's looked on silently and then led Lionel through the door that he'd motioned to earlier. As the older man led him through a labyrinthine set of corridors, Lionel looked at the portraits on the wall, along with the names beneath them - Fu Manchu, Ming The Merciless, Vandal Savage, The Master.

"The Master?" exclaimed The Doctor, interrupting Chloe's story.

Chloe, upset about the interruption, calmly replied "Yes, The Master - your archenemy. Now, if you'll please let me continue with my story and save any comments until the end."

"Sorry," said The Doctor, as Chloe continued her tale.

And so Lionel continued walking down the corridors, seeing the portraits of men with facial hair and, although he wanted to ask about them, he remembered Ra's' earlier comment about asking questions and kept his mouth shut.

"Do you like the pictures?" Ra's asked, somehow noticing Lionel's interest even though Ra's had his back to him.

"Very realistic for fictional characters," replied Lionel, "although I admit there are some I've never heard of."

"They're not fictional," replied Ra's. "That's just what they want people to think. Actually they're all former acolytes of mine. All of them terrible disappointments to tell you the truth."

Lionel, hearing the mention of the word acolyte, decided now was as good a time as any to mention the reason for his visit. "If you're looking for an acolyte - one that won't disappoint you - then I'm willing to take the job."

Ra's laughed. "Really, Lionel, that's very big of you, but I'm afraid you've got competition."

And with that, Ra's reached the end of a corridor and flung the door open to reveal a vast room containing twelve bearded/mustachioed men in suits, along with a young blond-haired boy in a medieval outfit, sat around a large table.

"Hello, everybody," said Ra's, using his sword to motion Lionel to a vacant seat. "Now I've brought you all here to compete in a series of trials so that I can find my new acolyte. At the end of this week, only one of you will remain."

"Well, I'm not going to be one of the ones leaving," exclaimed Lionel, deciding to make his position clear early on.

"Who said anything about leaving?" asked Ra's, polishing his blade.


	31. The Acolyte

Chloe looked around at the glazed expressions, reminding her of the glazed expression she'd had when Lionel had told her the story originally, and then she continued that story, determined to make things as brief as possible.

She told them how, throughout the week, Lionel and the others had schemed all forms of nefarious schemes while Ra's passed his solemn judgments and dispatched the lesser schemers in a variety of evil ways, and how, by the end of the week, only three remained.

Ra's Al Ghul walked into the vast room and gazed deeply at the three survivors, who were sat there exuding either extreme confidence or, in the case of the child, total apathy. After five minutes of silence and then some introductory quotations, Ra's got down to business.

"Now you all know," he said, "that, in order to remain immortal, I'll soon be re-immersing myself in the Lazarus Pits, and that while I'm in there I'll be needing somebody to help rule my empire. That somebody will be one of you three."

"Now, the good news - which Mordred, being a veteran of these things, will already know and have concealed from you - is that on these final days I tend to be benevolent - the sharks are satisfied, the piranhas are bloated, the death ray needs recharging and my sword's at the cleaners - so today everybody gets to live." He looked around at the uninterested faces - they weren't here to survive, they were here to win.

"The bad news, for two of you at least, is that I've made my decision." Suddenly the tension in the room began to rise, as Ra's walked around the room. Finally he stopped behind the young boy. "You, Mordred Pendragon. You've been coming here for centuries even though I keep telling you that your persistence is futile. Today is no exception."

The boy turned to Ra's. "That's so not fair. What did I do wrong this time?"

"So many things, Mordred," replied Ra's. "If not for my fear of your mother I would have killed you many times this week."

"It's because I've not got a beard, and because I'm young and you're so old and …"

"Act your age, Mordred," reprimanded Ra's. "It's not because of those things, even though I find them intensely annoying . It's because you never produce results."

"But it's not time yet," protested Mordred, "just as it's not time for me to grow up yet - I'll grow up really quickly one day, believe you me, but it's just not time."

"When will it be time?" asked Ra's impatiently.

"The portents indicate that there are only a couple of decades to go and there's so much planning to do. I've already predicted Bartholomew Allen's birth date, and, when he reaches sufficient years, I'll use my magic lightning on him - make him the fastest man alive."

Lionel burst out laughing. "How can you believe this drivel?"

Mordred Pendragon stamped his feet. "It's all true I tell you. The age of heroes is coming, and I'll be behind it. I'm already setting up forces to destroy a planet, kill a young child's parents, drag a spaceship to the ground, open a portal to Mars. There'll be Atlanteans, Amazons …"

"Enough," said Ra's. "Leave now, Mordred, and don't darken my doorstep again until the next time."

"Grown ups," moaned Mordred, shrugging his shoulders, and then he got up from his seat and left the room, slamming the door on his way out.

"That Mo P," said Lionel. "Can't believe a word he tells you."

"A bit like Miles here," said Ra's, looking at the bearded figure sat next to Lionel. "Mister Drentell, did you really believe that that advertisement you came up with was a good idea?"

"You need to advertise," explained Miles. "That was such a great idea of mine - _THE AD THAT MADE A MANIAC OUT OF MAC_. Face it, Ra's - there's no such thing as bad publicity. You need to join the twentieth century. Just think of all those poor people with sad lives who are looking for just what you can provide - immortality and a cause to follow. You could take over the world by just making yourself public - introducing the billions to your secret of _Demonic Tension_ , giving them some of that old _Ra's Al Dazzle_."

Ra's shook his head despairingly. "You've learnt nothing from this past week, have you, Miles? I don't want to take over the world by gentle persuasion. I want to take it over by force. Now please leave before I decide that it might be best to kill you after all."

Miles Drentell made a quick exit, while Lionel sat back and smiled.

"So, Lionel, it looks like it's just you and me. I have to say that I'm impressed - I haven't seen schemes so Machiavellian since, well, Machiavelli."

"Well actually I wasn't planning on sticking around," said Lionel, getting up. "To tell the truth I just came here for the challenge."

Ra's looked stunned. "But I've got all the resources you need to put your plans into action …"

"And where's the fun in that," said Lionel, walking over to the door. "Actually I never wanted to work for you. Originally I was planning on killing you and taking over this place … but that's too easy as well and, besides, I don't like the location."

"Very well, Lionel, if that's want you really want, I'll bid you farewell. You do realize that there's only one world for the two of us to fight over?"

Lionel Luthor smiled. "Bye, old man. It's been an education. Now you better get back to your pit."

Ra's smiled as Lionel closed the door behind him. At last, an acolyte who hadn't disappointed him.

* * *

Lana Lang stood in the shower, looking down at Zod's blood flowing away. Finally, still shell-shocked from the events of the day, she staggered out and dried her hair before firmly reattaching her Louise wig. Wrapping a towel around herself, she made her way to the nearest bedroom and lay on the bed, her thoughts cascading through her mind.

Suddenly she heard the downstairs door opening and a voice shouting "Hi, honey, I'm home."

Lana just lay silently on the bed, not wanting to say or do anything. She ignored the footsteps coming up the stairs, but then she saw her great-uncle Dexter, looking younger than she'd ever seen him looking before, standing in front of her. She had to say something.

"Hello, Dexter," she said. It wasn't the best opening line in the world, but it was a lot better than telling him that his beloved Louise was dead.

"Are you okay, honey?" Dexter asked, concern on his face. "You left the shower running, and I can't remember the last time you didn't call me just Dex."

Lana looked at her poor great-uncle, who'd lost Louise and would soon be losing her, and burst into tears.

Dex grabbed Lana to his chest and held her tight. "What's the matter? You can tell me. You know you can."

"It's nothing, Dex," said Lana, through her tears. "It's just … I guess I'm not myself today."

"Hey, that's okay. I know what the matter is - you don't have to say it … Hey, maybe we'll pop round to your sister's tonight. That should cheer you up."

Lana, her head buried in Dexter's now tear-stained shirt, suddenly stopped thinking about Louise, and started thinking about Louise's sister … her grandmother. And then she started thinking about her mother who would have been just two in 1961. Maybe, before Lana died Louise's death, she'd get a chance to see her mother.

"We could see my niece," said Lana, lifting her head to look at Dexter.

"Yeah, that's right. Your ... niece," replied Dexter, as he looked at his wife's smiling tear-stained face.

Lana drew back from Dexter. "I must look awful."

"No, Louise," replied Dexter. "You look more beautiful than ever."


	32. Wanting To Get Things Off Your Chest

"Is that it?" asked Clark, as Chloe finished her story. "Ra's just let Lionel go?"

"Uh-huh," replied Chloe, nodding.

"The man's clearly an idiot," said Zod, stroking his beard. "He should have killed Lionel while he had the chance."

"But then we would have missed that riveting story," added Ursa. "Anyway, I've decided that it's my turn to speak next. If anybody's got any problems with that then I'm sure a little gentle persuasion wouldn't go amiss."

As Ursa cracked her knuckles, The Doctor decided to intervene. "Very well, Ursa, you can go next, but first I think we all need a break for, say, ten minutes."

Welcoming The Doctor's words, everybody got to their feet and started wandering out of the console room.

Clark, who still wanted to talk to Chloe and tell her all the reasons he'd kept his secret from her, was dismayed to see that she was far more interested in the other him that was Lex.

Lex looked at Chloe, who'd grabbed hold of the question marks on his collar. With a gleam in her eye, she led him out of the console room. Suddenly she stopped.

"I'm sorry about revealing your secret, Clark, but you must have known it would happen anyway."

Lex nodded. "That's okay. I'm the one who should be apologizing - telling you that that honesty session was something to look forward to. I couldn't tell you the truth because -"

Suddenly Chloe's hand was over his mouth. "You don't need to explain, Clark, not any more. I know you've got your reasons and I'm sorry that I ever doubted you. But don't worry, Clark, those doubts are over now and I know deep down inside who you really are."

Chloe felt Lex smile beneath her hand, and then she smiled back. "I've got a surprise for you, Clark, but first you've got to close your eyes."

Lex closed his eyes and suddenly felt something - a makeshift blindfold - being tied around his head. As Chloe led him by the hand through the Tardis' labyrinthine corridors, he asked "Can I have a clue?"

"It's what you've been missing all these years, Clark. I'm going to give you what you could never have. I'm going to satisfy your deepest desire. Today, Clark Kent, all your dreams come true."

Lex wondered for a second if Ursa had switched minds with Chloe, and then suddenly they came to a stop.

"Where are we?" asked Lex.

"We're in the Tardis' dressing room," said Chloe, searching the racks of clothes. "Just looking for something to make your eyes light up… Ah, I think we've got just the thing."

Lex heard Chloe striding towards him, and then, without removing his blindfold, she tore off his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Not long to go, Clark. Just be patient."

And then he felt her pull his shirt off and then, for some unaccountable reason, put another shirt back on him.

"Does that feel good?" she asked.

"Does what feel good?" asked Lex, not feeling anything. "I don't understand."

Chloe took his blindfold off. "Now do you understand?" she asked, as Lex lowered his head to see the plaid shirt he was now wearing. His pretence of being Clark had required significant acting ability so far, but this was another level entirely. "Wow, Chloe, it's great," he said enthusiastically, smiling on the outside while cringing on the inside. "I can't remember the last time I wore one of these."

"That's okay, Clark. That's what friends are for. Now let's get back to the console room so the others can see it."

Inwardly, Lex made a mental note to make Chloe Sullivan pay for this indignity, although he wasn't sure whether he'd ever be able to come up with a punishment of sufficient proportions to fit this particular fashion crime.

* * *

Surprisingly, to Lex, only Rose Tyler burst out laughing when he walked back into the console room wearing the plaid shirt. "What's that you're wearing?" she asked, in the briefest of pauses between her laughter.

"I think it looks really good on you," said Clark honestly and consolingly, although it didn't console Lex in the slightest but instead just rubbed salt into the wound.

Ursa's eyes widened. "And I thought that I was sadistic," she thought aloud.

The Doctor interrupted things, desperate to keep to a timetable that he'd not yet got around to writing. "Okay, it's time for yet more honesty, courtesy of Ursa."

Ursa stood up, and looked around the audience with an icy stare making it clear that only a fool would dare to interrupt what she had to say.

"My name's Ursa," she started. "Now I was going to skip my history, thinking that you wouldn't really be able to cope with it, but if your stomachs are strong enough to have listened to Clark's endless whiny comments about his so-called love for that primitive pink primate Lana then I figure they'll be able to handle anything that I can throw at them."

Zod looked up at Ursa with a frown. Having heard a small fraction of Ursa's anecdotes before, he thanked Rao that he hadn't yet eaten.

* * *

Meanwhile, in 1961 Smallville, as Lana listened to Dexter discussing his day at work, she was grateful that her years as a waitress had taught her to feign interest in even the dullest of subjects.

"Hey, Lou, you seem to be back to your old self," commented Dexter. "Although your coffee's certainly improved. I don't know what this is but you ought to patent it."

Lana smiled. Even though it was undoubtedly her beauty that kept customers coming back to The Talon, she'd always prided herself on making a great cup of coffee. "Thanks," she replied. "It's nothing special."

Dexter stood up and walked behind her, putting his arms on her shoulders. As Lana drank her coffee, she suddenly noticed his hand going down towards her blouse and starting to unbutton it. "Hey, there's still some time before we need to set out, what say you and me -" he started.

Lana went white. She considered throwing her coffee over Dexter, or just rendering him unconsciousness with a quick kick, but, then again, Lana wasn't one for over-reacting. He was her great-uncle after all and he did think she was Louise, even though she was far more beautiful, so Lana had to think of a way to let him down gently.

"Not now, Dex. I'm still not feeling right. Maybe later."

"Okay," Dex groaned, withdrawing his hand. "Later it is."

Lana shivered at Dexter's words and wondered whether it was time to tell him the truth, to break his heart half as much as hers had been broken back in the future of 1989. No, she couldn't do that. Not now. Maybe later.

* * *

Ursa had been talking for twenty minutes now, and during that time the gruesome subject matter had had hardened reporter Jimmy Olsen fleeing to the bathroom at least twice. As he returned, ashen-faced, to the console room, it looked for an instant like Ursa's tales may have taken a gentler turn.

"I still remember the first time," said Ursa, unemotionally. "The pounding of flesh on flesh. Our muscles taut, our breathing labored, both of us bathed in sweat, his body writhing beneath me, the moans, the screams - I knew it was wrong, but it felt so right - and then finally there was the silence, as we lay there next to each other. As I lay there, shivering, listening to the rapid beating of my heart, I turned to face him, and asked him whether murder was really such a crime … Naturally he never replied."

Rose Tyler looked up at Jimmy's face, and his hand held over his mouth. It looked like something would have to be done, and she'd have to be the one to do it. "Stop, stop, stop," screamed Rose Tyler. "I can't take it any more. I'm not surprised the Tardis is unhappy, what with Norma Bates on board."

"Rose is right," admitted Chloe grudgingly. "Sure, Ursa's stories would make a great article but are we really safe with this Annabel Lecter among us? She's … she's …"

"Inhuman?" said Ursa. "I'd take that as a complement."

"They're right," said Jimmy. "We can't continue with her on board. She'd murder all of us."

"Murder a few aliens? Big deal," retaliated Ursa. "The Doctor does that sort of thing all of the time without remorse."

The Doctor, who'd been sat, silently thinking, suddenly got to his feet. "Ursa. You can continue to travel with us providing you agree not to commit any murders during that time. Fair enough?"

"Well, if you put it like that," said Ursa, putting her hands into the folds of her costume, "then I've got to say that I'm not willing to bow to your unreasonable demands."

General Zod rolled his eyes and wished he was back in the comparative safety of a battleground, while The Doctor, failing to comprehend Ursa, could only echo her. "Unreasonable demands?"

"Indeed," said Ursa, pulling out a lead-lined box with one hand , and a device with a button on it with her other. "Now if you really want me to be honest and show you the shallows of my soul then that's what you'll get."

With that she dropped the device to the floor, and, with her foot pressing down on the button, and Lex's scream of agony diverting everybody's attention, she opened the lead-lined box and shoved its contents against Clark's chest.

"Time for some brutal honesty," said Ursa with a smile.


	33. A Parting Of The Ways

As Chloe sat there in dumbstruck horror, Lex's body convulsing violently on one side of her and Clark's veins threatening to pop out of his body on the other, she remembered Lex's earlier revelation that she'd end up going insane and killing Ursa. At that time the thought had filled her with dread, but now it didn't seem like such a bad idea. Suddenly Chloe's thoughts were interrupted by Rose Tyler's voice.

"Doctor! You've got to do something!"

The Doctor looked around at everybody. Ursa crouched next to Clark, smiling, pushing the green rock against his chest. Clark, unable to move, his face twisted in agony (his time perception making the painful seconds seem like years). Lex shuddering on the floor, his screams stopping every so often when Ursa would lift her foot off the pain button, refusing to give him the luxury of lapsing into unconsciousness. Meanwhile, Zod just looked on impassively, while Chloe, Rose and Jimmy's eyes had now all turned to The Doctor, looking at him expectantly.

"Stop it, Ursa," he ordered, getting to his feet.

"Stop what?" replied Ursa innocently. "I'm just having a little fun."

"Nobody's going to die today," continued The Doctor. "You and I both know why."

Ursa took the kryptonite away from Clark's chest and released her grip on him that was preventing his weakened body from falling to the ground. She also took her foot off the device that was causing Lex so much pain as she strode over to meet The Doctor.

"And why's that?" she asked defiantly.

"I'll write it down for you," he replied, rummaging through his pockets. "Has anybody got a pen?"

"I hope this isn't a delaying tactic, Doctor," said Ursa. "That wouldn't be wise."

"Does it look like a delaying tactic?" asked The Doctor, heading towards Jimmy Olsen who was now brandishing the pen The Doctor required.

"That's just what it looks like," replied Ursa, as she looked at The Doctor, who appeared to be scribbling some words down on a piece of paper he'd just taken out of his pocket.

Meanwhile, Rose Tyler, who was now just behind The Doctor, looked on in confusion, since The Doctor wasn't actually writing any words on the paper - just pretending to. Suddenly she realized that it wasn't just ordinary paper - it was psychic paper - paper that relied on the viewer's mind to provide the missing information. That was brilliant. Ursa's own subconscious thoughts would provide the reason for her not to kill anyone.

"Here's why nobody's going to die today," said The Doctor, showing Ursa the blank piece of paper.

Ursa looked confused. "It's a picture of you, Doctor… with your head exploding. I have to say it suits you."

As The Doctor looked at Ursa aghast, Rose's heart sank. It appeared psychic paper obviously only worked on _normal_ people - with Ursa's twisted psyche it had acted more like a Rorschach test.

"Not sure why your head exploding would stop anybody from dying," continued Ursa, as she replaced the kryptonite back in its lead box, "but, truth to tell, I wasn't planning on killing anybody… Not today. If I hadn't been so rudely interrupted during my bout of honesty you'd all know that."

Suddenly a tear came to Ursa's eye as she addressed the onlookers (although Lex and Clark were still in no condition to appreciate her words). "I thought I was getting to know you all. I bared my soul to you, hoping for acceptance, but you all just want to get rid of me. You don't want to know why I am what I am. You don't want to try and understand me. But then again you could never understand me. You think Lana had it bad with losing her parents or Clark was grief-stricken over Lana's death - but that's nothing compared to what Zod and I have gone through. Everybody we grew up with, everybody we ever loved, everybody we'd even known … vaporized by an exploding planet."

The Doctor looked at the sadness in her eyes, empathizing with her. He knew exactly what that was like, and he wouldn't wish it on anybody … not even on Ursa.

Ursa, happy that the onlookers were finally silent, continued. "Of course, even Krypton's explosion is no excuse for the things I've done in my life. All of those deaths I caused, all those Kryptonians I killed. But now I know what it's like to lose someone … to lose everyone … and now I know how the families of my victims felt. Of course, I never intended to kill them. In fact, it was their fault. They all begged me to kill them… eventually. I was quite content to continue playing with them, but finally I'd give in to their demands. Call me merciful, call me soft-hearted, but that's what would happen. So it wasn't really my fault, you see, but still the next day I'd feel kind of responsible, sort of remorseful, full of guilt, vowing to never do it again … but inevitably I would. I just couldn't resist. I blame my childhood. It wasn't what you would call idyllic."

Ursa looked around to see everybody's eyes staring back at her, passing judgment.

"Anyway," she continued, "I would share the grotesque details with you, but, quite frankly, I can see that you don't want me here, and I don't really want to be here, so I think Zod and I will be leaving."

"You can't leave yet," said The Doctor. "The Tardis hasn't fully materialized."

"And we've got unfinished business," added Zod, stunned by Ursa's decision.

Ursa looked around at Zod. "The Doctor wants me not to kill anyone. I'm not going to make promises I can't keep. Besides, I've had enough of our master plan. At the rate we're going it could take years to find Ultra Woman, and there's no way on Krypton I'm going to let my child be born here. Whereas, if you'd listened to Clark, Jor-El's about to appear in Smallville. He could help us get back home - return us to Krypton."

"But if we stay here we could get Ultra Woman's powers," retorted Zod. "We could be immortal. We could rule the world."

"I don't want this world," replied an insistent Ursa. "I want Krypton."

"Very well, Ursa," agreed Zod grudgingly. "If that's what you want."

"You'll still have to wait for the Tardis to materialize," The Doctor reminded them.

"If the Tardis is telepathic then it should know better than to mess with me," replied Ursa.

At that precise moment, just on the other side of Smallville, the past version of the Tardis started to leave. As it did so, the present version of the Tardis finished its materialization. This, however, was so imperceptible that only a Time Lord would notice it.

"The Tardis … it's … it's finished materializing," said The Doctor, in surprise.

"It sounds like he's trying to trick us," said Zod. "I don't intend to be tricked again."

"Well, go out and check then," demanded Ursa.

Zod walked over to the Tardis' door, opened it and slowly and carefully laid his foot down on the ground outside. "It looks like he was telling the truth."

"Well it looks like we'll be going," said Ursa. "I'll miss you all so much," she added in a way that suggested she didn't mean it in the least.

Ursa then went around to each of them in turn, saying her goodbyes. First it was The Doctor.

"Doctor, despite all your great tales you seem to have ended up as some sort of trans-dimensional taxi driver. What a pity, but look on the bright side -at least you're dressed for the part. Hope we meet again some day."

"Goodbye, Ursa," said The Doctor, not wanting to say any more and jeopardize the chances of her leaving.

"Rose. I've got to say how much I enjoyed punching you in the face."

"Thanks," replied Rose, who was considering finding out if the feeling was mutual.

"And as for you, Jimmy, well I suspect even killing you would have been dull. Still, I can't be expected to get along with everyone."

Jimmy replied but Ursa ignored him and moved on to Lex.

"You're evil, dishonest, lecherous, untrustworthy … all qualities I respect. I'd suggest losing the shirt though. Oh, and you can forget about that list I made."

Lex, still recovering from Ursa's button-pushing, refrained from answering since the words he would have used would have made it obvious to Chloe that he wasn't Clark.

"And you, Chloe. I like you. You remind me of myself at your age."

Chloe was speechless as Ursa handed her the device she'd used on Lex. "You can have this. You'll no doubt want to use it on him when you figure out he's lying. Trust me - it's great fun."

Ursa then knelt down beside Clark, who'd now largely recovered from the kryptonite exposure.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you, Clark, but you do disappoint me. Of course, like me, it's probably due to your upbringing. You can't help acting like an Earthling rather than a Kryptonian I suppose, but you do give up so easily. Sure, Lana's dead, but you could still change things like you originally planned. If you save Krypton you'll change everything - you'll never meet Lana and lead her to her doom. Don't you owe Lana that? Don't you owe yourself that? I know you've learnt to fly Clark. Now learn to soar."

Ursa left Clark sitting there, thinking, as she walked out of the Tardis.

"Wow, an inspirational speech from a serial killer," observed Chloe. "You don't get those every day."

And then Clark stood up and, before Chloe's eyes, Clark's clothes suddenly changed into something more old-fashioned - he'd obviously paid a super-speed visit to the Tardis' dressing room. Then she noticed that he'd slicked his hair back the same way that Lana had slicked it back the last time they were here in 1961. Without a word, Clark started rising from the ground.

"Clark? What are you doing?"

Clark looked back at Chloe, knowing that his actions might change everything, but he didn't care. He had to do this … for Lana.

"I'm soaring," he said, and then all Chloe saw of him was a plaid and brown leather blur heading for the Tardis' door.

"Nice jacket," said The Doctor, on Clark's way out.

* * *

Dexter and Lana Lang arrived at the home of the grandparents that Lana had only ever had the flimsiest memories of. As she waited, with baited breath, for somebody to come to the door, Dexter turned to her and passed her a handkerchief to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.

"It's Lana, isn't it?"

"You know?" gasped a stunned Lana.

"I can read you like a book," replied Dexter, but Lana wasn't paying any attention to him. Her eyes were focused on the woman now opening the door - her grandfather looked just like he had in a photograph Lana had once seen, except that he was now in color.

Her grandfather looked at Lana standing there, still, looking straight at her. "Louise, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Sorry," said Lana, somehow managing to pull herself together. " My mind just wasn't in the present. I'll be okay, I prom-"

And then Lana saw her young grandmother appear, carrying Lana's two-year old mother in her arms.

"Should have brought more handkerchiefs," mused Dexter, looking over at Lana.


	34. Wishes

"You're not just letting them go, are you?" Chloe asked The Doctor.

The Doctor just stood there, oblivious to Chloe's question, with a beatific smile on his face. "Did you hear that?" he finally responded.

"Hear what?" asked Chloe.

"The Tardis - it just let out a big telepathic sigh of relief. I think it's happy again."

"Well, I'm not," said an exasperated Chloe. "Sure, we've got rid of Zod and Ursa, and there's nobody I'd rather get rid of, but I don't want them let loose in the past. Who knows what havoc they'll wreak. They'll turn 1961 upside down, they'll change destiny …"

"Yeah, that could be fun," replied The Doctor, "but maybe they're just following destiny, doing what they're meant to do. Besides, 1961 turned upside down is still 1961."

"So, are you saying they've already done whatever it is they'll be doing?" asked Chloe.

"No, I'm just suggesting the possibility. They might be following destiny, or they might not. I've no idea," replied The Doctor. "You could always ask Lex. If he's really Clark then he'll know what should happen here."

"It's fine," said Lex, bluffing, hoping that he could trust Clark, Ursa and Zod not to destroy his future.

* * *

As they walked away together from the Tardis, Zod turned to Ursa. "I take it that your honesty in there wasn't entirely honest. That unhappy childhood you claimed to have, your sorrow over Krypton's destruction…"

Ursa laughed. "My dear Zod, you, of all people, should know when I'm faking things. Of course I was lying. My childhood was the happiest time of my life, and Krypton, while hardly as detestable as this blue and green lump we're on now, was still a horribly white sterile place decidedly lacking on the entertainment front. No, I was just trying to build up their sympathy for me in case we end up meeting them again."

"That's what I thought," replied Zod, nodding his head.

"Then again, I might just be lying to you," said Ursa. "You'll never know, and that's the way I like it."

Just as Zod was about to grunt a reply, a shadow fell over them. Looking up, they saw Clark hovering high above them.

"Well, your words certainly inspired young Kal," mused Zod. "He believes he can fly. He believes he can touch the sky."

"Yes, I certainly built up his confidence," replied Ursa, "but it will be so much more fun tearing it down again."

She slipped her hand into the folds of her costume and opened the lead-lined box stored within. "Maybe this will bring him down to Earth."

Up in the sky, the confident Clark suddenly found himself falling. Falling from a great height. He'd been right all these years to be afraid of heights - not for his own safety, but for those below. Right now he was heading straight for Ursa and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.

Ursa, seeing Clark's descent, snapped the box lid closed and stepped back just in time, leaving Clark to plummet into the ground just in front of her. Slowly he lifted his head from the Clark Kent shaped indent he'd made in the ground. "Sorry," he said, his cheeks flushing.

"No need to apologize, Kal," said Ursa reassuringly. "I'm used to men falling at my feet."

"I guess I just haven't got the hang of this flying thing yet. It just seems so unnatural. It doesn't seem to fit in with any laws of physics…"

Suddenly Clark found Ursa's finger pressed against his lips, as she crouched beside his fallen body. "Hush, Kal. You think too much. You don't want to be governed by laws. Don't be restricted by what people say. You've got to follow your heart, just as Jor-El did when he sent you here, just as Zod and I did when we committed our crimes. That's what we've got in common, Kal. That's why we're all still alive rather than destroyed in Krypton's exploding flames."

"What was Krypton like?" asked Clark.

"It was beautiful, Kal," lied Ursa, "so beautiful. There were jungles of scarlet, volcanoes spewing gold, mountains made of jewels. Our moons were so close they filled up half the sky. We had sunsets that lasted for hours."

Zod shook his head, stunned at how at odds Ursa's colorful descriptions were with the dull white-chambered actuality of what had been Krypton. Meanwhile, Clark looked at Ursa with his eyes wide, falling for her every word.

"I wish I could go there," said Clark.

"You can, Kal," said Ursa. "Your father can take us all there."

"But I belong here."

"No, Kal, you just want to belong. But if we save Krypton then that rocket containing you will never be sent here, and the people of Smallville will never know you. If you go back to the future Smallville then you'll just be a stranger in a strange land."

"So, you're telling me I should go to Krypton with you?"

"I would never tell you that, Kal," said Ursa. "That's your decision to make, and yours alone."

Clark was silent for a moment, and then announced "I've decided."

Getting up, he turned away from Zod and Ursa and started walking back towards the Tardis, tears running down his face.

"He's going back with them?" asked a stunned Zod. "He's not even going to see his own father and try and avert Krypton's explosion, but leave things the same so he can go back to his own cozy Earth future."

"I think you've misjudged Kal," replied Ursa. "He's not leaving us. He's just gone to say his goodbyes."

* * *

Young Laura Potter had had a busy day, and now, as she lay in bed, her Auntie Louise was telling her a bedtime story. It was a new one, and Laura liked it because it was all about Laura, and how she'd grow up and meet a handsome prince, and would have a baby who was the most beautiful princess in the kingdom. But Laura knew something bad was going to happen in the story, otherwise Auntie Louise wouldn't keep bursting into tears, and then her auntie got to the bit with big green stones dropping on Laura and it made Laura cry because it was a nasty story and this made Auntie Louise cry even more and then her auntie was saying the story was true and Laura was crying even more and then her parents came and took her nasty auntie away.

And then Laura, wishing her auntie was dead, fell asleep and a few days later her auntie was dead.

Laura Potter would never make any wishes again after that day, or think back to that night. Well, there was an exception, 28 years later, when a big stone was dropping on her, when she did think back to that night and did make a wish - this time wishing for life rather than death. Unfortunately for Laura, that wish didn't come true.


	35. Home Truths

Chloe Sullivan couldn't believe The Doctor would just let somebody of Clark's powers loose on 1961 Smallville, especially when he was accompanied by a pair of goth psychopaths with a rock that could control him. "Well, if you're not going to do anything about it," she threatened, "then I am. Somebody's got to look after Clark's best interests."

"There's no need, Chloe," said Clark, entering the Tardis as if on cue.

"You're back," exclaimed Chloe, pleased to see that Clark had decided to do the sensible thing after all.

"Yes, but just to say goodbye," said Clark.

"Goodbye?" said a crestfallen Chloe.

Clark averted his gaze from Chloe as he said what he had to say. "I'm going back to Krypton, going to change the future. Just imagine it - a Smallville without green rocks."

Chloe imagined it. "A Smallville without you."

"That's okay. Nobody will remember I was even there. Time will change things."

"It won't change me," said Chloe, as tears filled her eyes. "I'll always remember you."

"I'll always remember you, Chloe," said Clark, looking into her eyes. "You've been … a really good friend."

"You can't go," said Chloe, worried for her friend's safety. "Not with those two. You can't trust them."

"But I just want to get home, Chloe. That's all they want to do too."

"But they've got that kryptonite, Clark. They'll betray you."

"They need that kryptonite, Chloe," reasoned Clark. "What if Ultra Woman pays a return visit?"

"What if Zod and Ursa killed Lana?" asked Chloe, and then, when she saw the hurt look on Clark's face, wished she hadn't.

"How can you say that? Zod almost died protecting Lana."

"But you listened to Ursa's speech. You must know what she's like. Face it, she almost killed you."

"Yes, but she didn't," explained Clark patiently. "Chloe, they're Kryptonians just like me and just like me they know that they don't belong here."

"You belong," said Chloe.

"No, I've tried to belong here, and I've wished with all my heart that I could, but I'll always be an outsider."

"Don't leave," pleaded Chloe.

Lex put a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Please, Chloe…"

"Take me with you," begged Chloe, ignoring Lex.

"No," said Clark, tears once again filling his eyes. "I know what it's like to be the sole alien on a planet you don't belong on. I can't put you through that, Chloe."

"Here, take this," said Lex, fishing in his pocket for something and pulling out a medallion. "So you can remember."

Clark was stunned as he took the medallion from Lex and looked at it. It was one that he'd seen before. "That medallion - the one Jor-El wore in 1961..."

Lex, hiding his surprise at this news, started to explain about the medallion. "This is an invention from the future, Clark, from LexCorp. It's the mem-O-random - a device for recording your memories, enhancing them, and then playing them back for the user later when you're trying to recall them."

"But its design," said a stunned Clark. "It's Kryptonian. It can't be from LexCorp."

"But it is," replied Lex. "With the popularity of Superman, _Kryptonian chic_ is the latest fashion trend. The design of this is just an example."

"But when I touched it originally, there was a flash of images I saw."

"That would be the index. If you'd have thought about the images suitably hard then it would have played back the relevant section, enhanced to match your memories. As it was, it had to wait for some suitable stimulus to pass through your mind and trigger its search engine."

"So that Jor-El I saw in the medallion … it was me … here … now," said a stunned Clark.

Lex nodded. It certainly looked like that was the case. "You're wearing the same outfit you saw your father wear," he stated, hoping that he was right.

Clark nodded. "Yeah," he said, with a laugh. "I thought it would be a cool surprise for him if I was dressed the same."

Chloe's face broke into a half-smile. "So I guess that means you can't see your father and prevent Krypton exploding. I guess it changes everything."

"It changes nothing," said Clark, suddenly with a new gravitas in his voice as he put on the medallion. "Krypton's not exploded yet and those caves could provide the route home. With Zod and Ursa's help I might just manage it."

"I can't believe you're trusting Mickey and Mallory to help you get back to Krypton," said Chloe in despair.

"That's hardly a fair comparison," responded Clark. "Sure they both wear black but …"

"And I think you'll find she's called Minnie," added Lex, suddenly realizing that he'd been impersonating Clark for far too long.

"Yeah, that's right," nodded Clark appreciatively. "By the way, older self. You take good care of Chloe when I'm gone."

"I'll take care of her, Clark," replied Lex with a smile, as Clark sped away from in front of them and out of the Tardis. As Chloe looked forlornly at the place Clark had been standing, Lex pulled her towards him. "Don't worry, Chloe. I'll be back soon."

"Great, now that he's out of the way, we can get moving," said The Doctor, banging his hand on the Tardis' console. As the telltale hum of the Tardis filled the air, Rose asked "Where are we going this time, Jimmy?"

"It was chaos," recalled Jimmy. "Monsters all over the place."

"Brilliant!" exclaimed The Doctor, as the Tardis began its rematerialization. "And about time too, I've been waiting ages for a monster…"

And then The Doctor walked over and opened the Tardis door.

"And now tons of them come along at once," added Rose, looking at the many green reptilian sharp-teethed creatures gathered outside.

* * *

"I'm sorry," said Lana to Dexter McCallum and the Potters. "I never planned to do it. But I looked at Laura there, with her whole life ahead of her, and I just had to tell her the truth."

She looked at the faces around her, a mixture of anger and sorrow and disappointment. Somehow, it seemed Dexter knew she was really Lana. She wondered if he'd told her grandparents who she really was as well.

"We heard you call her Lana," said her grandmother accusingly.

"Call her what?" asked Lana, not believing that the whole of 1961 had managed to figure out her secret.

"Don't play the innocent, Louise," continued her grandmother. "You called our Laura Lana. She's not called Lana any more, and the sooner you realize that the better."

"Her name's Lana?" asked a confused Lana.

"Not any more," said her grandmother angrily. "She's called Laura now."

"I'm sorry," said Dexter. "I'll take her home."

As the confused Lana was ushered out of the Potters home, Dexter turned to her. "I know it's hard. You were young when you had Lana and you didn't want to be tied down with a family. I realize that your decision to give her to your sister to raise might not have been your best idea in retrospect, but Laura's happy there. It's too late to suddenly change your mind now."

"I, Louise, am Laura's mother," said Lana, struggling to believe what she was hearing.

Dexter looked at Lana with dismay. "That's right, but you've given her up now. Glad to see you've stopped calling her Lana now, anyway… Maybe we should just go home. Get an early night."

"No, that's not such a good idea," replied a panicked Lana. "Maybe we could take in a movie."

And so, half an hour later, they found themselves sitting in the back row of The Talon watching Splendor In The Grass. Having said that, Lana's mind wasn't particularly on the film, and it was actively trying to ignore Dexter's arm wrapped around her shoulders. No, Lana's mind was still coming to terms with the news that Louise was actually her grandmother. No wonder they looked so much alike. Now, thanks to Lana, her grandmother was dead and her grandfather would soon want to sleep with her. Lana was used to her life being a tragedy, but, up until now, it had never been a Greek one.

Suddenly Lana Lang remembered The Doctor's words on their arrival in 1961 about not becoming their own grandparents. Well, the least she could do now was to play out the cards destiny had dealt her - she owed the timeline that much. She turned her mind back to the movie, determined to follow the script for the final reels of her life. Of course she knew this life she was leading wouldn't have made a good movie - for one thing, she could see the ending coming a mile off, and for another, Lana much preferred happy endings.


	36. Gadgets And Gizmos Aplenty

Jimmy Olsen had only ever spent one Christmas in Kingston Falls but it wasn't one he would forget in a hurry. Now he found himself back there, and this time he'd brought a Tardis along. As he, and his fellow occupants, looked at the scarf-wearing green monsters on the snowy streets outside, now singing them a garbled Christmas carol, Jimmy knew it was time to make his voice heard.

"We've got to get away, Doctor. They're dangerous."

"But that's why we've got to stay," replied The Doctor, who was actually enjoying the monsters' rendition of _We Wish You A Merry Christmas_. "Somebody's got to protect the local civilians."

Chloe walked over to the Tardis' door and slammed it on the monsters outside. "What about Clark? We've just abandoned him in Smallville with those two psychopaths."

"It was Clark's decision," replied The Doctor.

"It was a stupid decision," said Chloe, and then turning to Lex added "No offense, Clark."

The Doctor looked at Chloe, wincing as he heard the damage the now-disgruntled monster's claws were doing to the Tardis' exterior. "But Clark put a lot of thought into that decision."

"Okay," said Chloe, "so it's pre-meditated stupidity which makes it even worse. You should have stopped him."

"Even if I'd wanted to stop him, I probably couldn't have," argued The Doctor. "Besides, it looks like he's just following fate. He'll meet Louise, she'll die, and then we can pick him up again."

"You really think Clark will let Louise die?" asked Chloe. "Especially after the trauma Lana's death's caused him."

"Hope so. It'll make things a lot easier on the timeline," replied The Doctor flippantly. "Now let's save the locals."

"There's no need," interrupted Rose. "They'll be okay. I've seen the film."

"There's a film?" replied The Doctor.

Rose nodded. "So there's not much point hanging around here, is there? We may as well get on with our journey, rather than risk our lives to save people who'll be saved anyway."

The Doctor looked around at the faces of his other passengers who were all nodding in agreement with Rose. A new set of monsters and he'd have to leave them - there was no justice in the Universe.

"Killjoys," exclaimed The Doctor, as he gave a swift kick and the Tardis' console sprang into live.

* * *

Back in 1961 Smallville, Clark led Zod and Ursa into the local caves, hoping that they'd provide a passage back to Krypton.

"So," exclaimed Zod, "soon the mighty Jor-El will arrive."

"Well, I've got a small confession to make," said Clark sheepishly. "It looks like that drifter who I thought was Jor-El was actually me."

Zod looked at Clark in disbelief. "You? you're Jor-El?"

Clark nodded. "Time travel," he explained.

Ursa looked at Clark wistfully. "Well I guess it explains the uncanny resemblance. Such a shame, I was looking forward to meeting him. What with you and him together it would have been like twins."

As Zod glared at her, and Clark blushed, she continued. "Don't raise your eyebrow to me like that, Zod. I can't help it. I'm pregnant - I've got strange cravings."

Zod decided to keep silent at that point, rather than pointing out to Ursa that she'd always had strange cravings.

"So, Kal," continued Ursa, "how do these caves work?"

Clark looked back at Ursa stunned. "I've no idea. I thought that you'd know."

Zod and Ursa looked at Clark blankly.

"Wish I'd brought my key," said Clark. "That might have helped. Hey, wait a minute - that drifter had a key and I don't, so he can't be me."

Ursa looked at the massive smile that had broken out over Clark's face. "Either that or you find one," added Ursa, bursting Clark's bubble. "If other Kryptonians have been here then maybe they've left a spare key behind somewhere, maybe hidden one. Have you checked under the rocks?"

"That's ridic-" started Zod, just as Clark interrupted him. "Over there! Under that one!" shouted Clark, pointing to a rock.

Zod walked over to the rock and found an octagonal disc beneath. "This is a key?"

"That's right," said Clark, feeling mixed emotions. He was excited about the key, but sad that his possession of it now pointed back to him being the drifter. "In my vision the drifter used the key to store the medallion over there." He pointed to a spot on the cave wall.

Zod held the key against the wall and suddenly some animated symbols appeared on the wall and then a hole in the wall opened up. Zod couldn't help noticing the shape of the hole - it was the same shape as the symbol Joe-El and Superman had worn in his reality.

"What's in there?" asked Clark.

Zod put his hands in the hole and searched around. "It's empty," he finally said.

"Wonderful," exclaimed a bored Ursa "we've found a locker key."

Zod threw the key towards Clark in disgust. As Clark caught the key and placed it in his pocket, Zod started to walk towards him. "You imbecile. What sort of wild goose chase have you brought us on? Where's the technology you promised us … the computers?"

"They're here," said Clark defensively. "We just have to work out how to activate them."

"What if we never work out how to activate th-" started Zod, but as soon as he'd said the word _activate_ a voice recognition subroutine hidden within the caves recognized his voice and a bolt of energy shot out of the wall towards him, holding him there.

As Zod stood there, unable to move, unable to speak, Clark and Ursa watched on helplessly as an electronic voice filled the caves.

Greetings, Professor Jor-El. Shall we play a game?

* * *

The Tardis materialized.

"So, what's this place like?" asked Chloe.

Jimmy struggled to remember where the next stop would be and then, once he'd remembered, smiled. "Oh, this place is great. We can relax, get something to eat. The announcements can get a bit annoying but apart from that …"

"I've heard enough," said Rose. "Let's go and take in the sights."

Chloe nodded in agreement. "Sounds like a good idea."

"Okay," said The Doctor, a bit bored by Jimmy's description, "let's go. Everybody meet up back here in an hour say."

"What about that?" asked Lex, pointing to the device that Ursa had made to cause him so much pain.

"Don't worry, Lex … I mean Clark. I'll deactivate it."

"Thanks, Doc," said Lex.

"Come on, Clark," said Chloe, grabbing his gloved hand. "Let's get out of here. I'm tired of being cooped up in the Tardis."

"Okay, if I tag along?" asked Jimmy.

"Sure," lied Chloe, "the more the merrier."

And so, while Lex, Chloe and Jimmy explored the outside world, The Doctor started disassembling the device with his sonic screwdriver. "So, Rose, what were those monsters we met earlier?"

"Oh, them? They were Gremlins."

"Wonder if we'll meet any again?"

"Do you think we'll be going back to that reality?"

"Well actually," said The Doctor, disabling the device, "we never left it. Different time, different place, but same reality."

Suddenly there was a knock on the Tardis' door. Rose looked at The Doctor apprehensively. "Don't worry," he reassured her, "it's probably just one of the others who's forgotten something."

Opening the door, The Doctor saw a group of monsters, similar, yet different, to the one's he'd seen before.

As Rose came to his side, he asked her "Gremlins again?"

"Kind of," she replied. "They're the new batch."

"Actually, we prefer the terminology Mogwai," said the monsters' bespectacled leader. "No, make that Mogwai Superior. Now, Doctor, about this Tardis of yours - we simply must have it."

"It's not for sale," replied The Doctor.

"We're prepared to haggle," replied the Mogwai. "Actually my companions would prefer it that way. Now, just so that we can maintain a running count, may I be so bold as to enquire how many incarnations you have left?"


	37. The Zod Father

"So let me get this straight," said The Doctor, looking down at the bespectacled gremlin. "You're threatening to kill us if we don't give you the Tardis?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing," agreed the gremlin.

"Do you realize who I am?" added The Doctor.

"Well, your vehicle would suggest, unbelievable as it seems, that you are the fictional television character known as The Doctor," began the gremlin leader, "whilst your apparel would suggest that you lack the sartorial elegance of your predecessors, although, personally, I think the ears are a masterstroke, although slightly underdone."

"Then you'll know that I spend a large amount of my time destroying monsters," continued The Doctor.

"I also know that you spend a large amount of your time dying," replied the gremlin, "but please continue."

"Well, it just so happens my companion knows how to defeat you," said The Doctor triumphantly. "She's seen the films."

"Films?" echoed the confused gremlin.

"That's right," said Rose with a smile. "I know the three rules."

"You mean about not getting us wet, not feeding us after midnight, and not exposing us to bright light," said the gremlin leader, smiling back.

"Well, yes," said a suddenly nervous Rose.

"And what makes you think that you'll get a chance to disobey any of those rules," asked the gremlin. "After all, these aren't your normal run-of-the-mill Mogwai. These Mogwai are so much more. I've exposed them to radiation and they've mutated beyond the realms of your imagination."

As the lead gremlin said these words, the gremlin next to him, short (even by gremlin standards), suddenly raised his claws and from out of them popped a further set of metallic claws. Meanwhile, the bulky gremlin behind him suddenly turned metallic, while the blue gremlin next to him suddenly emitted a noxious gas and started making strange bamf-ing noises whilst teleporting around the other gremlins.

While most of the other gremlins laughed at the blue gremlin, and the lead gremlin just shook his head in embarrassment, one of the gremlins at the back suddenly rose into the air and conjured up a storm cloud from nowhere.

Suddenly the other gremlins looked up in horror at the weather-manipulating gremlin, scared that it would start a rainstorm, thus causing them to reproduce and give The Doctor time to escape, or, even worse, summon some sunshine that would dissolve them.

Quickly one of the gremlins leapt up, grabbing the other gremlin's ankle. As the weather-manipulating gremlin's skin started to turn pale and crack, it plummeted to the ground, while the other gremlin leapt off it towards The Doctor.

Rose looked on in bemusement as the new gremlin wrapped its arms around The Doctor's neck and planted a kiss firmly on The Doctor's lips. Suddenly, her bemusement turned to concern as The Doctor's face suddenly clenched in pain and his skin started to wrinkle. Quickly she took her jacket off, wrapped it around her hands, and grabbed the gremlin, pulling it off The Doctor and flinging it back towards the other gremlins.

The Doctor leant against the Tardis for support, breathing heavily, as his face slowly went back to its current normality, while, in front of them, yet another gremlin lifted up the 3D glasses it was wearing and lethal bolts of blue and red energy issued forth from its eyes. Fortunately, the gremlin's eyes, that appeared to be working totally independently of each other, were staring everywhere except straight ahead, meaning that only the walls and ceilings were damaged by the blasts.

"Okay, we get it," said Rose with a sneer, as the gremlin replaced his 3D glasses. "You're just an X-Men rip-off."

The lead gremlin looked at Rose. "A rip-off? I beg to differ. A satirical commentary - maybe, an affectionate pastiche - perhaps, but a rip-off? I think not."

He then turned his head towards The Doctor, who still appeared a little shaken. "So, what's it going to be, Doctor. Your Tardis or your lives?"

The Doctor stepped aside, pulling Rose with him, and then gestured towards the Tardis with his outstretched hand. "Okay, have it. It's all yours."

As the multitude of gremlins rushed into the Tardis, their bespectacled leader looked at The Doctor in surprise. "Well, thank you, Doctor. That's very civilized of you. Almost too civilized." And then realization dawned. "It's a trap, isn't it?"

The Doctor smiled. "Kind of," he said, taking out his sonic screwdriver and pointing it towards the Tardis.

The bespectacled gremlin rushed to close the Tardis door, but all the other gremlins, save one, had already entered by that time, and that final gremlin just turned intangible, running straight through its leader and into the Tardis, which then dematerialized.

"Shame you didn't have a telepath," observed Rose. "Then you'd have known what The Doctor was thinking."

The lead gremlin, who'd fallen on the ground when the Tardis had disappeared, looked up at Rose and The Doctor. "We did," he moaned, "but it was using all of its power just to keep the other gremlins organized. You have no ideas of the problems of management."

"I'd move from there if I was you," advised The Doctor, as the sound of the Tardis returning filled the air.

The gremlin got up quickly and looked at the vehicle materializing next to it. As soon as the gremlin was sure that the Tardis was fully materialized, it pushed open the door. "They're gone," it said, as it observed the emptiness within. "Where did you send them?"

"Somewhere they'd have fun," replied The Doctor. "You're welcome to join them."

"No, Doctor," replied the gremlin, "I'll stay here and destroy you."

"What? Are you going to pontificate us to death?" asked Rose.

The gremlin looked at Rose and, after a moment's thought, replied "I'm tempted but I'm not sure if we've really got the time, and also there's so many other things to take into consideration. Admittedly I could kill you in a variety of bloodthirsty ways but now, with my advanced intellectual quotient, menial violence seems somewhat beneath me. No, I'll go away and think about it."

"Okay, get back to us later," shouted The Doctor after the gremlin, now walking away from them.

"And maybe something more original next time," added Rose, but the gremlin didn't hear, for it was thinking its thoughts and planning its plans. It remembered seeing four unmutated Mogwai on one of the floors above, and was wondering what effect cosmic rays might have on them.

Rose's eyes followed the gremlin until it disappeared into the elevator at the end of the corridor.

"So where did you send the gremlins to?" asked Rose. "Did you send them to that film Cube so that they could be killed in all sorts of innovative bloodthirsty ways?"

"You watch too many films," said The Doctor, as he approached the Tardis, wanting to make sure that the gremlins had left the place tidy. "I just sent them back to our reality to do what gremlins do best."

"Our reality?" said Rose in disbelief.

"Yes, there was some unfinished business I thought they could sort out," replied The Doctor, looking in dismay at the mess the gremlins had left behind in the Tardis. "Have you seen the state of this?"

Rose grimaced as she looked in. "Yeah, I should have mentioned - gremlins like to party."

"Knew I should have asked them for a deposit first," muttered The Doctor.

* * *

Meanwhile, over in a different reality, place and time period, Clark Kent was looking at Zod being held firmly by a beam of energy, his face frozen in what looked like a silent scream.

Clark leapt in between Zod and the wall of the cave, intercepting the energy beam. As soon as Clark got in the way of the beam, it disappeared, leaving Zod to fall to the floor. Then, after a brief pause, they heard the electronic voice again.

Connection lost. Attempting reconnection.

Suddenly a bolt of energy leapt from the ceiling of the cave, straight towards Zod, pinning him to the ground.

Connection re-established.

Clark turned towards Zod, and was about to leap in between the new beam and Zod when suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Ursa. "If the computer wants to talk to Zod, let it."

"But it'll kill him."

"Zod's stronger than he looks," replied Ursa.

"But I can't just stand here and ignore what's happening."

"You're right," said Ursa. "Let's go outside. It'll be easier there."

"But -" began Clark.

"Please don't make me use the kryptonite, Kal."

* * *

Lex, Chloe and Jimmy had been in the Clamp Center for just over five minutes when they'd run into the gremlins. As the gremlins rushed towards them, Lex shouted "Let's split up."

That was the last Chloe had seen of Lex, as he'd left her and Jimmy behind as he entered an elevator closely followed by ten or more gremlins.

* * *

Clark and Ursa sat outside the caves, Clark staring steadfastly at the ground.

"Don't worry about him," reassured Ursa. "He loves playing with computers."

"It's not that," said Clark. "It's what the computer said before … it called him Jor-El."

"So you think that Zod's your father?" laughed Ursa.

Clark ignored Ursa's mocking tone. "It looks like it could be a possibility."

"Computers make mistakes. It's probably because Zod's voice sounds like Jor-El's."

"Maybe," said Clark. "Maybe not."

"So, if you think Zod's your father, then you must think I'm your mother."

"I've considered it," said Clark, still refusing to raise his eyes from the ground.

Ursa grabbed Clark by the chin, and pulled his head up so that he was looking straight in her eyes. "Kal, earlier today you were telling us that you're father was just like you. Now you're convinced that he's Zod. These are just assumptions, not fact. The important questions to ask are does it really matter and does it really change anything."

"It matters to me," replied Clark.

Ursa turned her head away from Clark's and looked up at the stars in the sky. "It matters to me too. I guess there's only one place we can find out, Kal. Hopefully Zod, with that computer, will be able to figure out how to get us there. In the meantime, we better get some sleep."

"What about Zod?" asked Clark.

"Don't worry about him," she replied with a smile. "He's not going anywhere."

"Goodnight, Zod," shouted Clark at the caves, and then added "Goodnight, Ursa" as he took off his brown leather jacket, and folded it to make himself a makeshift pillow.

"Goodnight, Clark," replied Ursa, still staring up at the stars as she tried in vain to work out which way home was. After a few minutes, feeling tired, she glanced over at the sleeping Clark, and then down at her stomach, shook her head and then tried to get to sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Smallville, Lana Lang was on her knees in the bedroom of the McCallum household, about to do something that she hadn't done in a long time, and something that she'd sworn that she would never do again. As she knelt there, her stomach feeling queasy as the image of Louise kneeling before Zod came into her head, she put her hands together, opened her mouth and began:

"Hi, God. I know it's a long time since we last talked. Your fault I guess. I don't think I'll ever forgive you for that Act Of God you let loose on Smallville in 1989. Anyway, enough of that. I guess nobody's perfect - I know I'm not, although maybe I'm just being hard on myself - after all, _nobody's perfect_ is just one of those things imperfect people say to make themselves feel better. Having said that, I couldn't have made things worse today if I'd tried. First I accidentally got my great-aunt, actually my grandmother, killed and then I made the time-traveling no-no of telling my mother how she'd die and that I was her daughter Lana. Fortunately everybody thought I was just calling my mom Lana because that was her original name, although my grandfather Dex is still mad at me, so he's sleeping in the spare room, which is a really good thing let me tell you."

"Anyway, all in all, this has been the second worst day in my life, and I really needed to talk to someone about it. But that's not the only reason I'm talking to you again. The fact is that I'm going to have to pretend to be Louise so that I don't end up accidentally creating some weird time paradox that will wipe out time and space - although strictly speaking that would also be classified as an Act Of God so I guess you'd be partially to blame as well, assuming you were still around and there was anybody left to blame you. The bad thing about being Louise is that I'm going to end up dead fairly soon. Now I've faced death lots of times before but I could always see a way out, but not this time, so I thought that I better have a chat with you and reserve a place up there, somewhere close to my parents. Oh, and could you do something about the color scheme. I realize that it's all white up there and that's nice, and I also know that the devil's got the red franchise pretty much sewn up, but it only takes a bit of red in the white to make pink and it is the best color. Just think about it, okay?"

"Anyway, sorry to bother you. Needless to say, being a waitress, I can identify completely with you. Worshipped by everyone, looking down on everyone, listening to people's dull problems all day, having to be everywhere at once, being expected to work miracles … we've got lots in common. Having said that, much as I've been tempted, I've never thrown flaming rocks at any of my customers."

"Amen."

Lana got up from the floor and sat on the bed, and then remembered there were some things she'd forgotten to say and got back down on her knees again.

"P.S. If your life really does flash before your eyes when you die, could I skip that day in 1989. Also, if I'm not meant to die in the grand scheme of things can you give me some kind of sign."

Lana waited a while, listening and looking for any kind of sign, but there was nothing.

"I'm in no rush though," added Lana, "so any time soon will do."

Lana got up, a bit disgruntled that God never gave her a sign. Then again, she wasn't even sure God existed, although she knew that there was a life after death, at least for her, although unfortunately, because she was dying in 1961, Lana had already lived it.

* * *

Zod finally managed to find the strength to push himself up from the ground.

"I'm … not … Joe-El," he screamed, as the beam of energy bore down on him.

Intruder alert. DNA check initiated.

Zod, now on his feet, suddenly wondered if telling the computer the truth had been the right idea.

DNA contamination detected.

The beam disappeared, leaving Zod standing there sweating. At least he could move now, even if all of the muscles in his body ached.

Cleansing initiated…

Suddenly the caves were filled with a blinding yellow light.

"No," screamed Zod. "My DNA's not contaminated. It's just that I'm from another reality. You can't do this!"

But it was too late, for Zod's DNA had been overwritten. Suddenly his muscles no longer ached and he felt the same way he'd felt when he'd escaped The Phantom Zone. He was unstoppable, all-powerful.

"Well," mused Zod. "It appears I stand corrected."

* * *

Lex staggered out of the elevator, covered in gremlin blood. Splitting up hadn't been a good idea - anybody who'd watched horror movies would know that, but Lex knew that the nearest Clark got to watching horror was Scooby Doo where splitting up was _de rigueur_. Still, being separated from Chloe for a while would give Lex a chance to be himself which, after pretending to be Clark for so long, was a welcome relief.

And then Lex heard a familiar voice asking "Can I help you?" and saw a clean-shaven man in a dressing gown approaching him.

"Father?" was the only thing Lex could say.


	38. Sons And Glovers

Daniel Clamp looked at the bald man, covered in gremlin blood, wearing a plaid shirt, cricket trousers and one black glove. The same man who'd just called him father.

"Is this some kind of paternity suit?" he asked, looking at the man quizzically.

Lex looked at the man who looked just like his father, but then, remembering he was in a different reality, quickly pulled himself together. "No, I'm sorry. You just reminded me of my father, although he's dead now."

"Sorry to hear about that ," said Daniel sincerely. "Did those creatures get him?"

"No, it was a long time ago," replied Lex.

"Looks like you had a run in with those creatures yourself," observed Daniel.

"Yes, they were a minor annoyance," admitted Lex, who decided to spare the Lionel look-alike the full grisly story of how he'd used one of the gremlin's claws to slice open the back of two of the other gremlins' heads and then plunged his hands into those two gremlins, using them as glove puppets to kill the rest.

"I'm impressed," said the clearly impressed Daniel Clamp. "Very resourceful. I could use a man like you, Mister …"

"You can call me Lex," replied Lex.

"No, no, that would never work," explained Daniel, walking back and forth, shaking his head. "With that bald head everybody would associate you with that sleazeball Lex Luthor from the Superman comics. No, let me think … Lex is short for Alexander. Hey, can I call you Al?"

Lex hid his thoughts behind a pleasant smile and replied "That would be fine, Mister …"

At which point Daniel Clamp burst out laughing. "You crack me up, Al. You really do. Imagine pretending not to know multi-billionaire Daniel Clamp, owner of this hi-tech building we're now standing in."

"Yes, I'm a regular laugh riot," replied Lex. "But actually, to tell the truth, I'm from the future."

"I should have known," said Daniel. "The strange outfit, the bald head. Are you a future historian visiting to research me?"

"No, Mister Clamp, I'm just passing through."

"But you could work for me, Al," said Daniel, wrapping his arm around Lex's shoulders. "You could be my apprentice. With your knowledge of future fashion we'd be unstoppable. Just imagine it - plaid would be the new black …"

"Funny you should mention that," started Lex, but Daniel's monologue had only just started.

"… After all, plaid had to come into fashion one day. Why not tomorrow? And what a great selling point - getting it covered in creature gunk actually improves its appearance. And then there's the one glove idea - we can double our glove-selling profits with that idea. Whenever anybody hears the term one-glover in the future they'll think back to me."

Lex felt a bit uneasy. This stranger was being nicer to him than his own late father ever was. This was just too weird for Lex and he wasn't sure how much longer he could handle it. "I've got to go," he said, removing Daniel's arm from his shoulder, trying to show no emotion.

"But Al, I thought we were friends," said a hurt Daniel as Lex walked away.

Lex said nothing, but just kept walking towards the gremlin-corpse-filled elevator.

"At least tell me who's President in the future," shouted Daniel.

"Some guy called Al," replied Lex, as he pressed the elevator button.

And then the elevator doors closed leaving Lex alone - which was the way Lex liked it.

* * *

Meanwhile, on a stairwell several floors below, Chloe Sullivan was bumping into a raven-haired girl running the other way.

"Sorry," said Chloe, "but you better get out of here. There are these weird little monsters up there."

"I know," replied the girl. "They're all over the building."

"Any ideas what they are?" asked Chloe.

"Yeah, I know. Me and Billy encountered them back in my hometown one Christmas."

"Wow, that must have been the worst Christmas ever," said Chloe, unaware of how much she'd later regret saying that sentence.

"No, that wasn't the worst Christmas," replied the girl, her face suddenly serious, a tear in the corner of her eye. Chloe recognized that face - it was just like Lana's whenever she told of her parents' blind date with a space rock.

"I don't like to talk about it," continued the girl. Chloe recognized that sentence - it was the same one Lana used immediately prior to talking about it.

The girl then launched into a story of how, one Christmas, they'd found her father dead in the chimney dressed as Santa Claus.

If Chloe had been Lana then she would have just shook the girl and told her to get over it. After all, she'd only lost one parent and it was his own dumb fault anyway and, since most accidents happen in the home, it was hardly on the same improbability scale as getting hit by a meteorite. Unfortunately Chloe was Chloe so she tried to console the girl by saying "That's tragic. I guess you must really hate that holiday."

"No," replied the girl, "I hate all holidays. First there's New Year's Day …"

* * *

Elsewhere, in a different reality, in 1961 Smallville, Zod was wondering what to do with his new powers. Of course he could just fly out of the cave, destroy all of Smallville, demand that the Earth make him President and command Kal-El's allegiance. Although, with all that was going on these days, he wasn't sure whether to say "Come to me, son of Jor-El! Kneel before Zod" or "Come to me, son of Zod! Kneel before Jor-El!"

Then again, knowledge was power, and only he knew of his newly regained abilities. Maybe it was time to play a more tactical game this time around, at least until Ursa's powers were restored. In the meantime he had a computer full of information in front of him along with a mind now capable of storing all of that information.

"Activate!" he said, and a beam of energy came out of the cave wall and hit him - only now, with his new super-strength, it was incapable of holding him in place. As he strode backwards and forwards, the beam moving with him, Zod searched through the computer's database.

Many hours later a voice from behind him distracted him. "You've changed," said Ursa, entering the cave.

"Oh," said Zod, suddenly stopping in his tracks. "You mean my walking around. Yes, I'm starting to get used to this computer."

"No, I meant your appearance," said Ursa.

Zod said nothing, although presumably Ursa had noticed the change in him.

"Your hair," continued Ursa. "It's gone white at the sides, along with your beard."

Zod was shocked. Presumably the initial strain of being held by that energy beam had taken its toll.

"Actually it makes you look more …" began Ursa,

"Distinguished?" suggested Zod.

"Old," corrected Ursa.

Zod, used to Ursa's putdowns by now, didn't react. "So, where's Kal?"

"He said he was going out to get the lay of the land."

"The lay of the land?" echoed Zod.

"Yes, presumably Louise's nickname," replied Ursa. "Although, since the Lana who beat you up used martial arts, it suggests that you killed the real Louise, and the Louise in Smallville is probably Lana."

"I could kill Lana now if you wish," said Zod.

"No, she'll die from a gunshot wound soon enough," said Ursa. "Although Kal was adamant this morning that he could save Louise this time, but I put him straight. Trust me, after my chat with Clark, Lana or Louise or whoever she is will die just like history's already decided."

* * *

Clark set out towards Smallville that morning to do everything that he'd already seen happen. He'd had big ideas about changing things, but those sort of ideas had got Lana killed. If that wasn't enough, Ursa had just given him a big lecture about how letting Louise live could have untold effects on the future and that Lana might not even end up being born. He couldn't risk it. The only reason he was here was to save Lana and if that meant Louise had to die then so be it.

Of course Ursa had also suggested that the drifter he'd seen originally might have actually been his father and the real Jor-El wouldn't be turning up in Smallville this time just because he saw Clark waiting for him. Of course that would also mean that that medallion from Lex was some form of trick, but why would his future self be playing tricks on him?

Clark looked at the mem-O-random hanging around his neck and wished that he could just forget everything that had happened to him since he'd arrived back in 1961 Smallville. Of course, with his memory, he couldn't, but the mem-O-random could and duly obliged, clearing its memory of all the events it had thus far recorded.

Clark tried to make his walk into Smallville drag on as long as possible, but finally he arrived. Resting his arm on a mailbox he looked around at the 1961 Smallville streets. Then he wandered along the sidewalk seeing things the way he'd already seen them.

Meanwhile, across the street, Lana, who'd got out of the house early that morning to avoid Dexter, had decided to take another look at the Talon. As she came out of the Talon reading a magazine, a man suddenly ran up to her and, pointing a gun at her, gestured towards her purse.

"Give it over!" he shouted.

Lana had never seen the man before but she remembered enough about the future to know that it was Lachlan Luthor, the man who'd eventually end up killing her.

"Get away from me!" she shouted in horror, but this didn't deter Lachlan.

"Give me the money!" he shouted, "I know you've got it! Give it!"

As she and Lachlan fought over her purse, Lana, suppressing her natural martial arts mastery in order to fit into the past, ended up falling to the ground. At the same time, a man looking just like Clark appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Lachlan, throwing him against a lamppost. Then the police showed up, but Lana didn't notice them, she was too busy looking at the man who'd saved her who she presumed was Clark's father.

Clark looked at the woman he'd just helped, a woman who looked just like Lana, a woman who'd have to die soon. He helped her to her feet, while Sheriff Billy Tate got out of the police car and grabbed Lachlan.

Normally, both Clark and Lana would have been tempted to launch into an attack on Billy Tate, since he was the man behind Louise's - no, Lana's - imminent death, but both were preoccupied with looking at each other.

"My hero," said Lana, stunned at the man's resemblance to Clark.

Clark, stunned by the woman's resemblance to Lana, and feeling guilty about the feelings he was suddenly having towards her, what with Lana only just dead, replied "You don't strike me as someone who usually needs saving." He didn't think it was a particularly good line, but it was the one he remembered. The truth of the matter was that Louise definitely did need saving, but, in this one case, that was the one thing he just couldn't do.

"Thank you," replied Lana, still stunned at the stranger's resemblance to Clark.

Clark picked up the magazine Lana had dropped and handed it to her, while listening to Lachlan tell Sheriff Tate "Did you see that? He could've killed me."

Half of Clark wished he had killed Lachlan, the other half wished he'd killed Sheriff Tate as well. Suddenly his attention was drawn back to Louise.

"Thanks. I'm Louise," she said.

Clark had been hoping that she'd say that she was Lana and that that whole death thing had been some horrible mistake, but he had to face facts - Lana just wasn't coming back. As he continued looking at Louise, so beautiful, almost as beautiful as Lana had been, he realized that he'd have to make up a name for himself. Then again, he could just use the one he remembered.

"You can call me Joe," he replied.

Lana looked at Joe, and remembered that Joseph was Clark's middle name. There was a coincidence. Then she looked at Joe some more, he certainly wasn't an ordinary Joe. In fact he was the most exciting thing she'd seen in her one day in this past Smallville.

"Well, Joe, you're the most excitement we've had all year," she said, exaggerating slightly.

Clark, admiring Louise's obvious talent for understatement, was then interrupted by Sheriff Tate offering to shake hands. "Well, I guess we owe you our gratitude. Hi, I'm Sheriff Billy Tate. Some reflexes you got there."

"They kind of surprised me, too," replied Clark, using all his concentration to resist crushing Sheriff Tate's hand.

"I haven't seen you around Smallville before," observed Tate.

"I'm just passing through on my way home," replied Clark truthfully, although whether he'd actually get home relied on whether Zod could work out a way to transport them from the caves to Krypton.

"Lucky you," replied Lana. At least Joe would get home. She'd never get home because, for the sake of the Universe, she was going to have to die here in the past

"Forgive Louise," said Tate. "She's got stars in her eyes. Always has."

"There's nothing wrong with that," said Clark. After all, the stars were where he was heading himself.

Clark and Lana continued staring at each other, both of them thinking about other people who they'd never see again who were actually themselves, when Dexter drove up and got out of his car.

"Louise?" he shouted.

Lana looked over at Dexter, annoyed that he'd interrupted her time with the stranger, although she got some comfort out of the fact that she knew she'd be seeing Joe again.

"Everything all right?" added Dexter.

Yeah, everything's fine, thought Lana, apart from the fact that I'm stuck over forty years in the past and I know my expiration date.

"You go on home, Louise," said Tate patronizingly. "I know how Dex hates to miss his bridge game. I'll drop by and get your statement."

Lana looked at Clark. "See you around," she said and then slowly walked to the car. Once she was inside she continued to look at Clark, and Clark continued to look at her, and then Dexter drove himself and Lana away, while Clark kept looking at her as long as his X-ray vision allowed.

"I appreciate your help," said Tate, but that gave no comfort to Clark. He couldn't be of any help to Louise - no help at all.


	39. Looking At Things With Fresh Eyes

There was lots of activity in the Clamp Center - Daniel Clamp yelling "Buy plaid!" down a phone line, a girl called Kate Beringer telling her many, many tales of holiday woe to Chloe Sullivan, a plaid-clad Lex Luthor looking wistfully at the black garments in one of the fashion stores, unaware that Jimmy Olsen was watching him, and, oblivious to all this other activity, running down a variety of corridors, were The Doctor and Rose pursued by a quartet of cosmic ray enhanced Mogwai.

"Why do we always end up running down corridors?" asked Rose.

"It's good for you," replied The Doctor. "Keeps you young. You should have seen what I used to look like."

Suddenly a small bespectacled gremlin stepped out in front of them. At first The Doctor and Rose thought they were going to run right into the familiar figure, but instead they smashed straight into an invisible barrier.

"Ah, Doctor," said the gremlin, looking down at The Doctor and Rose lying dazed before him on the ground. "I see you've encountered my latest creations - Mogwai bombarded with cosmic rays. The greatest examples of Mogwai-kind the world has ever seen."

The Doctor and Rose looked towards the bespectacled gremlin and then back at the gremlins approaching them from behind: one a tall stretchy gremlin, one with a skin made of orange rocks and a final gremlin that just looked normal - normal, that is, for a gremlin.

"So, these three Mogwai are the greatest ever?" asked The Doctor with a certain degree of disdain.

"Actually there's four of them," explained the gremlin. "The final one's invisible. Actually I think they're all rather fantastic."

Rose looked at the gremlin in disbelief. "The fantastic four? The world's greatest cosmic Mogwai seen? That's so lame."

The bespectacled gremlin looked at Rose angrily. "I doubt whether you'll say they're lame when they've finished with you. In fact I doubt whether you'll say anything ever again."

And with that, the top-half of the stretchy gremlin's body suddenly zoomed towards Rose and wrapped itself around her, while the rocky gremlin started stomping towards her and The Doctor.

"So what does that other gremlin do?" The Doctor asked the gremlin mastermind, as the rocky gremlin got nearer and nearer.

"He bursts into flames," replied the gremlin.

Suddenly the other gremlins stopped in their tracks and the stretchy gremlin went slack around Rose.

As Rose took the opportunity to throw the stretchy gremlin off her, the bespectacled mastermind addressed the other Mogwai. "Don't worry about the bright light of the flames - they won't affect you if you're invisible - the light will pass right through you."

Suddenly the gremlins realized the wisdom of their leader's words and started sniggering as the invisible gremlin used its powers to make all of them, apart from the soon-to-be-flaming gremlin, invisible.

As soon as the others were invisible, the final gremlin burst into flames and it soared through the air towards The Doctor. It barely paid any attention to the voice that suddenly echoed through the corridor.

You are on fire. Please do not panic. The Clamp Center comes equipped with all the latest-

Suddenly the announcement was drowned out by the sound of the sprinkler system spreading copious amounts of water throughout the corridor. Just at the end of that corridor, just out of reach of the water, the bespectacled gremlin stood, looking on in horror as the invisible gremlin, distracted by all the new-born visible gremlins suddenly attempting to escape from its body, lost the concentration necessary to keep the other gremlins invisible.

At that moment the orange rock gremlin reappeared, writhing in agony as hatching gremlins, caused by the water seeping into the gaps in its rocky skin, tried in vain to fight their way out of its rocky hide. Similarly the stretchy gremlin reappeared, bouncing across the room as the new gremlins inside him, failing to break out of his bouncy skin, ricocheted back inside him.

And then there was the fiery gremlin, now enveloped in steam, with newly-born newly-dead charred gremlins sprouting all over its body. Finally, unable to take the unbearable pain any longer, it went supernova with its bright light destroying itself and all of the other gremlins.

Fortunately, by that time, The Doctor, Rose and the bespectacled gremlin had had the sense to rush around the corner, away from the danger of the heat and the light. Unfortunately the dying screams of the gremlins could still be heard.

"Didn't really think that through, did you?" observed The Doctor.

The gremlin looked at The Doctor and smiled. "Plenty more where they came from."

Rose looked at the gremlin with exasperation. "Surely you're not going to attack us again?"

"Quite frankly, my dear, I'd love to," replied the gremlin, "but I'm afraid time's getting on. It'll be getting dark outside soon and it will be time for us to invade the streets. No, I've got much more important things to prepare."

"The musical number?" asked Rose, remembering the film's finale.

The gremlin stroked his chin with his index claw. "Now's there an idea," he said, and then dashed off.

"A musical number?" said The Doctor. "That should be fun to watch."

"Already seen it," replied Rose. "Now let's collect the others and get out of here."

"But-" began The Doctor, and then stopped talking due to Rose's hand over his mouth.

"Start spreading the news," she ordered. "We're leaving today."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a different time and reality, Ursa and Zod were talking in a Smallville cave when Clark suddenly ran in.

"I can't do it," he announced.

"Do what?" asked Ursa.

"Let Louise die," replied Clark.

"But I explained to you why she has to die, Kal," said a slightly irritated Ursa. "If Louise lives then the impact on the time stream could be immeasurable."

"I know what you said," replied Clark. "I realize that if Louise lives then she'll affect all of those around her and Lana might not even end up being born but I still can't do it. I've got the chance to save Louise and I have to take it."

Zod turned his head towards Clark. "Listen to your mother, Kal."

"Mother?" said a stunned Clark.

"That's right," replied Zod. "I've searched through the Kryptonian archives and we are indeed your parents."

"Father?" added a stunned Clark.

"That's right," replied Zod. "And you cannot shame the House of El by interfering with destiny."

"But, Father, I think I love Louise," started Clark.

"Love?" said Zod with fury. "A genetically pure Kryptonian mixing with a random-gened alien. I will not allow it."

"But -" started Clark.

"But nothing, Kal. You've got to understand that your actions have consequences. Have the last couple of days taught you nothing? First you changed the future by being dragged from your own time, which ended up with the deaths of everyone you held dear, and then, once you'd managed to correct that, you immediately set off a course of events that led to Lana's death."

"But I can't just let Louise die," pleaded Clark.

"I know it's hard, Kal," replied Zod, "but it has to be done. To prove you're truly worthy to return to Krypton with us you'll have to make that sacrifice."

Clark looked at Zod in stunned silence as Zod continued. "That medallion around your neck is recording your every action. Return with it once Louise has met her tragic fate and then we'll return to Krypton together … as a family."

Without saying anything, Clark turned away from Zod and Ursa and then ran away back to Smallville wishing that he could forget what had just taken place. Unfortunately, although the mem-O-random duly obliged by erasing the scene from its memory, the scene still remained indelibly etched within Clark's.

* * *

Chloe Sullivan had been listening to Kate Beringer's unhappy holiday stories for what seemed liked an eternity, and she was already beginning to miss Lana's tales of meteoric misfortune that seemed positively bright and breezy in comparison. As Kate came up with yet another unbelievably tragic tale about a Thanksgiving trip to Cincinnati and her uncle getting killed by a plummeting turkey, Chloe was suddenly relieved to hear a familiar voice.

"Chloe," said the familiar voice.

"Jimmy," she replied, looking up at Jimmy.

"And that's why I never give thanks for Thanksgiving," continued Kate, oblivious to Jimmy, totally engrossed in her totally gross stories.

"Wow, that's really sad," interrupted Chloe, "but my friend Jimmy's here now so I better be going."

"Oh, okay," said Kate. "I guess I better be going too. Nice talking to you."

"Wasn't it just," said Chloe, taking even her sarcasm to new levels.

As Kate disappeared up the stairs, Chloe looked at Jimmy. "Boy, I'm glad to see you."

"Makes a change," observed Jimmy. "Lately it seems you've been trying to avoid me."

"I'm sorry, Jimmy," admitted Chloe. "I didn't mean for it to be that obvious."

"Have I done something wrong?" asked a confused Jimmy.

"No, it's not your fault," replied Chloe. "Well, it kind of is, but not you. A different Jimmy Olsen."

"You're blaming me for something a different Jimmy Olsen did?" asked an incredulous Jimmy Olsen.

"No, it's not that," replied Chloe. "It's just that in my reality I met Jimmy Olsen - who didn't look like you, just like my Lois and Clark don't look like your Lois and Clark. Anyway, I met Jimmy at the Planet and we were kind of close and … this is going to sound stupid."

"Trust me, Chloe," replied Jimmy. "I've been through so many different realities that nothing can sound stupid anymore."

"It's just that I've been feeling things about you, but it's confusing because those feelings aren't because of you. It's the other Jimmy Olsen I like, the one you remind me of in some ways. But you're not that Jimmy Olsen."

"Hey, that's okay," said Jimmy downheartedly. "I'm used to being the wrong Jimmy Olsen."

"And that's the other thing that I hate about you. You don't just remind me of Jimmy Olsen, but with your self-pity and the way you look at me and the way you try and hide it, you remind me of me and the way I look at Clark."

"So, you don't think things can work out between us?" asked Jimmy, knowing the answer in advance.

"No, I'm sorry, Jimmy. It's just too confusing. Besides, cross-dimensional relationships never work."

"So, you're sticking with Lex instead?" asked Jimmy.

Chloe nodded.

"Chloe, I've got something to tell you," said Jimmy. "This isn't just sour grapes. It's about Lex."

"What about him?" asked Chloe. "Are you going to tell me he's not really Clark."

"That's right," said Jimmy, somewhat taken aback by Chloe's guess. "I know that you're not going to believe me but I've just seen him admiring some black clothes and … well, I realize it's hardly concrete proof but -"

"That's alright, Jimmy," interrupted Chloe. "I know that Lex isn't Clark. I've known for a while."

"You have?" said a surprised Jimmy. "Well," he reasoned aloud, "I guess Lex could never be a convincing Clark."

"Actually Lex is a totally convincing Clark," admitted Chloe. "Unfortunately for him, when he first arrived, he was also a totally convincing Lex. Whereas I could believe Lex could be totally convincing as Clark, I knew that Clark, the same Clark who I reduced to tears during that honesty session, could never ever be a convincing Lex."

"So why do you go along with his charade?" asked a puzzled Jimmy.

"Well, firstly, it's fun. I got him to wear plaid and, if I get the chance, I'll get him to milk a cow. Secondly, this trip will be a lot easier if Lex is being Clark than if Lex is being himself. And finally, and most importantly, I tend to use it to my advantage. Nobody fools Chloe Sullivan and gets away with it."

"So if Lex isn't Clark," said Jimmy, "then why did he give him that medallion?"

"Lex probably wants to spy on Clark. Find out all about the caves. Who knows? That's the least of my worries anyway."

"What do you mean?" asked Jimmy.

Chloe took out the photograph that her older self had given her back in the future. "Look at that."

"So?" said Jimmy, looking at the photo. "Nothing's changed."

"It's started changing. Look at Lois's eyes. Look at Clark's eyes."

"They've changed," exclaimed Jimmy, looking closer.

"That's right," said Chloe. "Recognize either of them?"

"Lois' looks kind of familiar," replied Jimmy. "Clark's don't... I give up - whose eyes are they?"

"Dead people's," replied Chloe.

Hidden away on some stairs above them, eavesdropping on their conversation, the plaid-clad Lex couldn't help but smile.


	40. Changing The Stream

The Doctor and Rose, having run down numerous corridors and flights of stairs, finally found themselves back inside the messy interior of the Tardis.

"So why are we back here?" asked an out-of-breath Rose. "Shouldn't we be out there looking for the others?"

"And spend the rest of the day running down corridors and being chased by monsters?" asked The Doctor, with a gleam in his eye. "It's tempting, true, but there's an easier way."

"What? We just wait for them here?" asked Rose.

The Doctor smiled. "Good idea, Rose. Definitely the easiest way, but no, I had something else planned. First I need a number."

"You need me to think of a number?" asked a confused Rose.

"No," replied The Doctor. "You have to wait here. I've got a number to find"

"What you want me to just wait here while you look for a number?"

"No, of course I don't want you to just wait here," replied The Doctor. "Look around you. Somebody's got to tidy this place up."

Rose looked at The Doctor in horror. "Let me get this straight. You, an enlightened species from outer space, are planning to just abandon me here to tidy up your living room while you go off looking for a number."

"Exactly," smiled The Doctor.

"As plans from outer space go that ranks up there with plan 9," fumed Rose. "I may be your assistant but housework's out of the question."

"Fair enough," replied The Doctor, "I'll do it when I get back. I just didn't want you to get bored."

And with that, The Doctor left Rose behind in the console room and started on his quest to find the number he needed.

Meanwhile, Rose sat down in the console room, looking around at the mess the gremlins had left behind. Suddenly she thought she heard a scraping sound coming from somewhere. As she got up and walked around the console room, trying to find the sound's source, the scraping sound seemed to stop.

She looked around, wondering if there was still one of the gremlins here, hiding somewhere.

* * *

Ursa looked at Zod. "It looks like Kal-El believed you."

"Of course he did," replied Zod. "He's far too trusting."

"And have you actually got any answers from that computer yet?" asked Ursa, circling Zod.

"These things take time," replied Zod.

"And yet I grow impatient, Zod. And you don't want me to get too impatient."

"Soon," replied Zod. "Soon I'll have the answers."

"And in the meantime I'm supposed to just sit here and do nothing?" asked Ursa.

"I'm afraid so," replied Zod. "Even though you're incapable of sitting and doing nothing."

"That's right," said Ursa smiling, "I need to get involved more. Make totally sure that Lana ends up dead."

"But you can't interfere with Clark and Lana," exclaimed a worried Zod. "You can't risk the consequences."

"No, Zod, it's a matter of honor. After the pummeling she gave you, I need revenge. Nobody else beats up my man and gets away with it."

"But you can't just kill her," pleaded Zod. "Clark would never forgive you."

"Relax, Zod. I'm not going to kill her. I'm just going to help with the organization."

And then Ursa turned away from Zod and started striding towards the cave exit. "Besides," she added, looking down at her costume, "I could always use a spare sheriff's badge."

* * *

The Doctor strode in to find the console room considerably tidier than he'd left it. "So you decided to tidy up after all. Bored?"

"No, I heard a strange noise. I was cleaning things up to try and take my mind off it."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Probably the Tardis playing telepathic tricks with your mind," explained The Doctor. "It really hates being untidy."

"I hope that's all it was," replied a disgruntled Rose. "Did you find that number you were looking for?"

"Here it is," replied The Doctor, handing Rose a piece of paper. "Now if you could please dial it."

Rose took out her phone. "So, who am I dialing?"

"Chloe."

"Will her phone even work in this dimension?" asked a doubtful Rose.

"Yes, the Tardis will take care of it," said The Doctor reassuringly.

"But what if somebody else in this dimension has the same number?"

"They do, but that doesn't matter."

"Okay," Rose said, then dialed the number. Suddenly she heard Chloe Sullivan's voice on the other end of the line:

Hello?

"Hi, Chloe. It's me, Rose. Do you have Lex and Jimmy with you?"

Just Jimmy.

"Well, can you come back to the Tardis quickly. We want to leave as soon as possible. If you see Lex on the way could you tell him as well."

Sure, we'll be there soon, monsters permitting.

"Thanks, bye."

* * *

Chloe put down her cell phone.

"So, who was that?" asked Jimmy.

"Rose," replied Chloe. "She wants us to get back to the Tardis."

"But aren't you going to finish telling me whose eyes these are?" asked Jimmy, looking at the photo.

"It'll wait," said Chloe, putting the photo away, and starting up the stairs.

Jimmy followed Chloe's lead and together they ran, in silence, managing to avoid any gremlins until, finally, they reached the Tardis.

"Lois' eyes are Lana's, aren't they?" said Jimmy suddenly, realizing that she was the only dead person he knew from Chloe's reality.

"That's right," said Chloe, knocking on the Tardis door. "Looks like Lana will make that wedding after all... Not a word to Lex about any of this, Jimmy. Understood?"

Before Jimmy had a chance to answer, The Doctor opened the door. As they entered, he saw Lex, who'd only just beaten them back there, and Rose.

"So, Rose," asked Chloe, "how did you know my number?"

"The Doctor gave it me," replied Rose, showing Chloe the piece of paper with her number on it. Chloe recognized the handwriting immediately - it was her own.

"I'll take that," said The Doctor, grabbing the paper out of Rose's hand, crunching it into a ball and putting it safely in his pocket.

Chloe looked at him with suspicion. "Doctor, we need to talk."

"Let's get out of here first," said The Doctor, elbowing the console into life. Suddenly the Tardis was filled with a loud gargled thrumming sound and then the Tardis was spinning, throwing the occupants of the console room around in every direction. By the time it reached its destination, their injured blood-stained bodies lay scattered unconscious around the console room.

Needless to say the Tardis was unhappy - it hated a mess.

* * *

Meanwhile, in 1961 Smallville, Lana Lang was sat across the table from her husband/grandfather Dexter McCallum, playing bridge. For most people who'd never played the game before this might have been a problem (even with the help of beginner's luck), but fortunately Lana took naturally to it, bidding perfectly every time and winning every hand. Still, as Lana sat there, looking at the four cards she was now holding (a pair of aces and a pair of eights) she derived no comfort from her success. Her mind was elsewhere - partly on their opponents the Langs (her non-biological grandparents), partly on her imminent death and partly on the drifter she'd met earlier.

Suddenly she noticed a figure at the window, his hand pointing towards the barn. It was Clark's father, Joe. Nodding almost imperceptibly towards Joe, she continued to play out her hand, looking at the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds until she'd be with him.

Meanwhile, outside the house, Clark turned to the four-year-old boy who'd been playing in the garden when he'd arrived.

"Now you promise that you won't mention I was here," said Clark, "because if you do it could change the timestream forever and destroy the Universe or worse."

"Okay," said the youngster. "But you've gotta play that game with me again. The one I always win."

Clark let out a sigh. "Okay, but this is the last time."

And then he shook his hand three times while the boy did the same and then, just like all the times before, Clark waited to see what the boy did and then used his super-speed to change his hand to the losing item - this time scissors.

"Rock wins!" yelled Louis Lang triumphantly.

* * *

As the Doctor lay there, barely conscious, he heard a voice that he'd never expected to hear again.

"Well, well, Doctor, you've changed ... and, by the looks of you, you might well be changing again soon. Still, I think there's still just enough time left for me to show you who's The Master."


End file.
